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320. HIGGINS (Godfrey)." Horac Sab- 
 baticae ; or, an Attempt to correct certain 
 Superstitions and Vulgar /Errors respecting 
 THB Sabbath. Third edition, with additions. 
 London , 1851. Sz/Oj cloth, scarce, . . . .^^$2,S0 
 
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 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031765872 
 
HORJ: SABBATICJl; 
 
 OR 
 
 AN ATTEMPT 
 
 TO 
 
 CORRECT CERTAIN SUPERSTITIOUS AND VULGAR ERRORS 
 
 TIESPECTINO 
 
 THE SABBATH. 
 
 By GODFREY HIGGINS, Esq., 
 
 ir. B, *., ;. B. ABIAI. BOC, ;. S. ABI. s., 
 
 OF SKELLOW GEANGE, NEAR DONCASTEE, 
 
 " Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of 
 you, lest I have hestowed upon you labour in vain."— Gaiat. iv, 10 — 11. 
 
 Third Edition, 
 
 WITH additions AND 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 CHARLES FOX, 67, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 1851. 
 
P\.V3Z.hl.% 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Preface 
 
 Extract from " The Mosaic Sabbath &c." 
 Mr Higgins's Preface to Anacalypsis ; containing a short 
 memoir of bis life and studies 
 
 HoR^ Sabbatic^ 
 
 The author's preface to his first edition 
 The author's preface to his second edition 
 Horse Sabbaticse : Part I . 
 Part II . 
 
 ApPEJfDIX No I 
 
 No II 
 
 Letter I . . . . 
 Letter II . 
 No III. a table of passagesj in the New Testa^ 
 ment, in which the Sabbath is mentioned 
 
 VI 1 
 
 
 X 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 . 32 
 
 
 . 63 
 
 • 
 
 . 103 
 
 . 
 
 . 104 
 
 
 . 106 
 
 108 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Godfrey Higgins, esq. was a gentleman of indepen- 
 dent property, who resided at Skellow Grange, near 
 Doncaster in Yorkshire. He is the author of three 
 works, either of which is sufficient to reflect great 
 credit upon its author, and, in fact, to procure liim a 
 niche in the great temple of literary fame. Mr Hig- 
 gins was not intended for a hterary man, and his 
 education was, as he tells us, altogether unequal to 
 the requirements of literary or scientific research. 
 Notwithstanding this impediment, he turned his atten- 
 tion to the subject of Antiquities, and in 1829 publish- 
 ed a laborious work in one volume 4to, entitled 
 " The Celtic Druids ; or an attempt to shew, that 
 the Druids were the priests of Oriental colonies who 
 emigrated to India, and were the introducers of the 
 first or Cadmean system of letters, and the builders 
 of Stonehenge, of Carnac, and of other Cyclopean 
 works, in Asia and Europe." In this work, the author 
 avails himseE of every opportunity of contrasting the 
 simplicity of primitive Christianity with the complex 
 system which the Church has introduced. This bias 
 procured him many enemies ; but none of these, 
 however they might censure his opinions, ever had 
 any cause to find fault with his integrity and honour- 
 able conduct through life. 
 
vi Preface. 
 
 In 1836 appeared Mr Higgins's second work sur- 
 passing the former both in extent and learning — 
 " Anacalypsis, an attempt to draw aside the veil of 
 the Saitic Isis ; or, an inquiry into the origin of lan- 
 guages, nations, and religions, &c. 2 vols 4to, London 
 1836." — As two hundred copies only of this laborious 
 and bulky work were printed, it is already become 
 rare, and, in all human probability, never will be re- 
 printed. As the preface to the work furnishes some 
 curious information concerning the lire and studies of 
 the author, and is altogether a singular and amusing 
 composition, we have thought right to insert it as a 
 supplement to the preface of the present volume. 
 
 The third of Mr Higgins's works in size, though 
 the earhest in point of time, is his Hor^ SABBATiciE, 
 which first appeared in 1826, when the evangelical, 
 or low party in the English church, forgetful of the 
 free character of the Christian religion, were malcing 
 gigantic efforts to enforce a more strict observance of 
 the Sabbath. The success of this litlle book was great 
 in spite of the attempts to decry, on the score of de- 
 cency and propriety, what was unanswerable as a train 
 of deep and conclusive argument. A second edition 
 of this work appeared in 1836 : and the recent revi- 
 val of the Sabbatarian party in the present day, has 
 led to its being here published in a third edition with 
 much additional matter serving to elucidate the sub- 
 ject * ; for, notwithstanding that nearly thirty other 
 publications have appeared on the same subject, Mr 
 Higgins's book is still the most convincing and the 
 best. 
 
 The other works here referred to, are, generally 
 speaking, pamphlets and short treatises. The largest . 
 of them is entitled : 
 
 * All addiiional mailer introduced into this edition lias been enclosed in 
 brackets for the sake of distinction. But the brackets have been inadvertently- 
 omitted in the case of a single note beginning. " * The second edition &c." 
 at page 7. 
 
Preface. vii 
 
 " The Sabbath ; or, an Examination of the six 
 texts conmonly adduced from the New Testament in 
 proof of a Christian Sabbath ; by a Layman, &c." 
 
 The author of that work has also published a short 
 pamphlet, " The Mosaic Sabbath ; or an Inquiry into 
 the supposed present obligation of the Sabbath of the 
 Fourth Commandment, &c." 
 
 He does full justice to Mr Higgins's little book, 
 which he truly entitles, " a short but very able trea- 
 tise on the Sabbath question, by the late Godfrey 
 Higgins esq." The Mos. Sabb. p. 6. 
 
 We conclude these remarks with an extract from 
 the smaller work ; as it furnishes a fair specimen 
 of the manner in which the author has treated the 
 subject. Mosaic Sabbath : page 44. 
 
 Extract 8fc. 
 So strong is my position in contending for the non- 
 obligation of the Mosaic Sabbath, that I might safely 
 concede the fact to be, that not one jot or tittle has 
 passed from the Law, and that, consequently, the 
 Sabbath commandment of the Decalogue still remains 
 unrepealed and in force. For of what avail to the 
 Sabbatarians would be this concession ? I should again 
 encounter them with the question, — Upon whom does 
 it remain in force ? and the answer, as before, must 
 be, — Upon the Jews, and the Jews only. If any 
 Jewish converts to Christianity, or any Judaising 
 Christians descended from Jewish converts, were to 
 tell me they considered the obligation of the Fourth 
 commandment as still imperative, my reply to them 
 would be, — With you I will not dispute the fact, I 
 wage no war of controversy with you and your race, 
 who are altogether but an infinitesimal fraction of the 
 millions that constitute the community to which we 
 belong ; and all I have to say to you in parting is : Be 
 
viii Preface. 
 
 consistent in your belief ; keep your Saturday Sabbath^ 
 and do not, because you profess to be Christians, pre- 
 tend you have authority, for you have none, to hold 
 your Fourth commandment Sabbath on a Sunday. 
 
 No : my controversy is not with Jew-Christians ; 
 it is with the Sabbatarian portion of my fellow-country 
 men, descended from heathen ancestors, from the 
 aboriginal Britons, who, as some are of opinion, were 
 converted to the Christian faith in the first century, 
 and from the Romans, the Angles, the Saxons, the 
 Danes, and the Normans, who at different periods, 
 invaded and settled in Britain, and all of whom were 
 converted from heathenism more than a thousand 
 years ago. To the millions of heathen-descended 
 Christians among us who insist upon the present obli- 
 gation of the Fourth Commandment, I say, — Show 
 me, if you can, when it became obligatory upon hea- 
 thens, or upon converts made from them. It was not 
 made obligatory upon heathens when it was promul- 
 gated from Mount Sinai. They were excluded from 
 the privilege of becoming subject to this and the other 
 statutes and judgments which were then, bestowed 
 upon the chosen people. To that people only were 
 they given, and the surrounding nations were to admire 
 and envy them on that account. The whole tenour 
 of the Jewish Scriptures implies that the Mosaic stat- 
 utes and judgments never became obligatory upon the 
 heathens during that period of the world's history 
 which is comprised in those Scriptures : and as to the 
 Christian Scriptures, far from showing that those sta- 
 tutes and judgments became at any subsequent period 
 obligatory upon heathens, or upon converts from the 
 heathens, they prove the fact to be directly the reverse. 
 
 There is not in the Christian Scriptures any com- 
 mand, nor any teaching by Christ or his apostles, which 
 brings the converts from the Gentiles under the obli- 
 
Preface. ix 
 
 gation of the Mosaic law. Not only is there this 
 negative evidence, there is also the positive evidence 
 of the divinely-inspired apostolical decree recorded in 
 the fifteenth chapter of the Acts, which expressly 
 exempts the Gentile converts from the observance of 
 the law of Moses, save in some few particulars that 
 have no bearing upon the present question. Finally, 
 there is positive evidence in the teaching and example 
 of St Paul, that even upon the Jews themselves the 
 Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment had ceased to 
 be of religious obligation. 
 
 The argument against the alleged present obligation 
 of the Mosaic Sabbath may be summed up in a few 
 words. We are in possession of Scripture proof that the 
 Fourth Commandment of the Decalogue was not made 
 obligatory upon the heathens at its promulgation — that 
 it did not become so at any time thereafter prior to 
 the promulgation of the Gospel — and that it did not 
 then become obhgatory on the converts made from 
 the heathens. It is a clear deduction from these pre- 
 mises, that Christians descended from heathen con- 
 verts cannot be under a rehgious obhgation to observe 
 the Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment. 
 
 h 
 
ACTOBIOGEAPHT. 
 
 Preface to the Anacalypsis, 
 
 containing 
 
 An Autobiography of the Authou. 
 
 It is a common practice with authors to place their portraits in 
 the first page of their books. I am not very vain o£ my personal 
 appearance, and, therefore, I shall not present the reader with my 
 likeness. But that I may not appear to censure others by my 
 omission, and for some other reasons which any person possessing 
 a very moderate share of disernment will soon perceive, I think 
 it right to draw my own portrait with the pen, instead of employ- 
 ing an artist to do it with the pencil, and to inform my reader, in 
 a few words, who and what I am, in what circumstances I am 
 placed, and why I undertook such a laborious task as this work 
 has proved. 
 
 Eespecting my rank or situation in life it is only necessary to 
 state that my father was a gentleman of small, though independ- 
 ent fortune of an old and respectable family in Yorkshire. He 
 had two children, a son (myself) and a daughter. Afterjthe usual 
 school education, I was sent to Trinity Hall, Cambridge, as a pen- 
 sioner, and thence to the Temple. As I was expected to pay the 
 fees out of the small allowance which my father made me, I never 
 had any money to spare for that purpose, and I never either^took 
 a degree or was called to the bar. 
 
 When I was about twenty-seven years of age my father died, 
 and J inherited his- house and estate at Skellow Grange, near Don- 
 caster. After some time 1 married. I continued there till the 
 threatened invasion of Napoleon induced me, along with 'most of 
 my neighbours, to enter the third West- York militia, of which, 
 in due time, I was made a major. In the performance of my 
 mihtary duty in the neighbourhood of Harwich, 1 caught a very 
 bad fever, from the effects of which I never entirely recovered. 
 This caused me to resign my commission and return home, 
 shortly afterward became a magistrate for the West Eiding of my 
 native county. The illness above alluded to induced me to turn 
 my attention, more than 1 had formerly done, to serious matters. 
 
AuTOBIOBRAPHy. xi 
 
 and determined me to enter upon a very careful investigation of 
 the evidence upon which our religion was founded. This, at last, 
 led me to extend my inquiry into the origin of all religions, and 
 this again led to an inquiry into the origin of nations and languages; 
 and ultimately I came to a resolution to devote six hours a day to 
 this pursuit for ten years. Instead of six hours daily for ten years, 
 I believe I have, upon the average, applied myself to it for nearly 
 ten hours daily for almost twenty years. In the first ten years of 
 my search I may fairly say, T found nothing which I sought for ; 
 in the latter part of the twenty, the quantity of matter has so 
 crowded in upon me, that I scarcely know how to dispose of it. 
 
 When I began these inquiries I found it necessary to endeavour 
 to recover the scholastic learning which, from long neglect, I had 
 almost forgotten : but many years of industry are not necessary 
 for this purpose, as far, at least, as is useful, The critical know- 
 ledge of the Greek and Latin languages, highly ornamental and 
 desirable as it is, certainly is not, in general, necessary for the 
 acquisition of what, in my opinion, may be properly called real 
 learning. The ancient poetry and composition are beautiful, but 
 a critical knowledge of them was not my object. The odes of 
 Pindar and the poems of Homer are very fine ; but Varro, Macro- 
 bius, and Cicero Be Natura Deorum, were more congenial to my 
 pursuits. The languages were valuable to me only as a key to 
 unlock the secrets of antiquity. I beg my reader, therefore, not 
 to expect any of that kind of learning, which would enable a per- 
 son to rival Porson in filling up the Lacunae of a Greek play, or 
 in restoring the famous Digamma to its proper place. 
 
 But, if I had neglected the study of Greek and Latin, I had 
 applied myself to the study of such works as those of Euclid, and 
 of Locke on the Understanding, tlie tendency of which is to form 
 the mind to a habit of investigation and close reasoning and 
 thinking, and in a peculiar manner to fit it for such inquiries as 
 mine; for want of which habit, a person may possess a con- 
 siderable knowledge of the Classics, while his mind may be 
 almost incapable of comprehending the demonstration of a 
 common proposition in geometry. In short, we see proofs every 
 day, that a person may be very v.-ell skilled in Greek and Latin, 
 while in intellect he may rank little higher than a ploughboy. 
 
 Along with the study of the principles of law, whilst at the 
 Temple, I had applied myself also to the acquisition of the art of 
 sifting and appreciating the value of different kinds of evidence, 
 the latter of which is perha])s the most important and the most 
 
xii Atjtobiogeaphy. 
 
 neglected of all the branches of education. I had also applied 
 myseK to what was of infinitely more consequence than all the 
 former branches of study, and in difficulty almost equal to them 
 altogether, namely to the unlearning of the nonsense taught me in 
 youth. 
 
 Literary works, at the present day, have generally one or both 
 of two objects in view, namely money and present popularity^ 
 But I can conscientiously say, that neither of these has been my 
 leading object. I have become, to a certain extent, literary, 
 because by letters alone could I make known to mankind what 
 I considered discoveries the most important to its future welfare ; 
 and no publication has ever been written by me except under 
 the influence of this motive. 
 
 When I say that I have not written this work for fame, it 
 must not be understood that I affect to be insensible to the 
 approbation of the great and good : far from it. But, if 1 had 
 my choice, I would rather rank with Epictetus than with Horace, 
 with Cato or Bratus than with Gibbon or Sir Walter Scott, Had 
 either present popularity or profit been my object, 1 had spared 
 the priests ; for, in Britain, we are a priest-ridden race : but, though 
 I had died a little richer, I had deserved contempt for my 
 meanness. 
 
 My learning has been acquired since I turned forty years of age, 
 for the sole purpose of being enabled to pursue these researches 
 into the antiquities of nations, which, I very early became con- 
 vinced, were generally unknown or misunderstood. But, though 
 1 do not pretend to deep classical learning, yet perhaps I may not 
 be guilty of any very inexcusable vanity in saying, that I find my- 
 self now, on the score of learning, after twenty years of industry, 
 in many respects, very differently circumstanced in relation to 
 persons whom I was accustomed formerly to look up to as learned, 
 from what I was at the beginning of my enquiries ; and that now 
 I sometimes find myself qualified to teach those by whom I was 
 at first very willing to be taught, but whom I do not always find 
 disposed to learn, nor to be untaught the nonsense which they 
 learned in their youth. 
 
 tn my search I soon found that it was impossible to look upon 
 the histories of ancient empires, or upon the history of the ancient 
 mythologies,- except as pleasing or amusing fables, fit only for the 
 nursery or the fashinable drawing-room table, but totally below 
 the notice of a philosopher. This consideration caused my search 
 into their origin ; indefatigable labour for many years has produced 
 
Autobiography. xiii 
 
 the result, — the discovery which T believe I have made, and 
 which ia this work I make known to my countrymen. I am 
 convinced that a taste for deep learning among us is fast 
 declining ;* and in this I believe I shall be supported by the 
 booksellers, which is one reason why I have only printed two 
 hundred copies of this work : but I have reason to think the case 
 different in Prance and Germany ; and on this account I have 
 sometimes thought of publishing editions in the languages of those 
 countries. But whether I shall wait till these editions be ready, 
 and till my second volume be finished, before I make public the 
 first, I have not yet determined ; nor, indeed, have I determined 
 whether or not I shall publish these editions. This must depend 
 upon the foreign booksellers. If, like some learned persons, I 
 had commenced my enquiries by believing certain dogmas, and de- 
 termining that I would never believe any other ; or if, like the 
 Eev. Mr Faber, I had in early life sworn that I believed them, 
 and that I would never believe any other, and that all my comfort 
 in my future life depended upon m^ professed continuance in this 
 belief, I should have had much less trouble, because I should have 
 known what I was to prove ; but my story is very different. 
 When I began this enquiry, I was anxious for truth, suspicious 
 of being deceived, but determined to examine every thing as 
 impartially as was in my power, to the very bottom. This soon 
 led me to the discovery that I must go to much more distant 
 sources for the origin of things than was usual; and, by degrees, 
 my system began to form itself. But not having the least idea in 
 the beginning what it would be in the end, it kept continually 
 improving, in some respects changing, and I often found it ne- 
 cessary to read again and again the same books, /or want of an 
 index, from beginning to end, in search offsets passed hastily over 
 in the first or second reading, and then thought of little or no 
 consequence, but which I afterwards found most important for 
 the elucidation of truth. On this account the labour in planting 
 the seed has been to me great beyond credibihty, but I hope the 
 produce of the harvest will bear to it a due proportion. 
 
 T very early found that it was not only necessary to recover 
 
 • Of this a more decisive proof need not he given than tlie failure of 
 the Rev. Dr Valpy's Classical Journal, a work looked up to as an honour 
 to our country hy all learned foreigners, which was given up, as well from 
 want of contributors as from want of subscribers. 
 
xiv Autobiography. 
 
 and improve the little Greek and Latin which I had learned at 
 school, but T soon found my enquiries stopped by my ignorance 
 of the Oriental languages, from which I discovered that ours was 
 derived, and by which it became evident to me that the origin of 
 all our ancient mythoses was concealed. I therefore determined 
 to apply myself to the study of one of them ; and, after much 
 consideration and doubt whether 1 should choose the Hebrew, the 
 Arabic, or the Sanscrit, I fixed upon the first, in the selection 
 of which, for many reasons, which will appear hereafter, I 
 consider myself pecuharly fortunate. 
 
 For some time my progress was very slow, — my studies were 
 much interrupted by public business ; and, for almost two years 
 together, by a sudcessful attempt into which I was led, in the 
 performance of my duty as a justice of the peace, to reform some 
 most shocking abuses in the York Lunatic Asylum. 
 
 In my study of Hebrew, also, a considerable time, I may say, 
 was wasted on the Masoretic points, whicli at last I found were a 
 mere invention of the modern Jews, and not of the smallest use.* 
 
 During this process, I also found it was very desirable that I 
 should consult many works in the libraries of Italy and France, 
 as well as examine the remains of antiquity in those countries, and 
 my reader will soon see that, without having availed myself of this 
 assistance, I should never have been able to make the discoveries 
 of which he will have been apprized. The benefit which 1 deriv- 
 ed from the examination of the works of the ancients, in my two 
 journeys to Rome, and one to Naples, at last produced a wish to 
 examine the antiquities of more Oriental climes, and a plan was 
 laid for travelling in search of Wisdom to the East ; — the origin 
 and defeat of this plan I have detailed in the preface to my Celtic 
 Druids. t I am now turned sixty, the eye grows dim, and the 
 cholera and plague prevail in the East ; yet I have not entirely 
 
 * It may be necessary to inform some persons who may \-ead thisbook 
 that, in the dark ages, the Jews, in order to fix the pronunciation and the 
 meaning of their Hebrew to their own fancy at the time, invented a sys- 
 tem called the Masoretic Points, which they substituted in place of the 
 vowels, leaving the latter in the text; but, where they could not make them 
 stand for consonants and thus form new syllables, leaving them silent and 
 without meaning. 'I'he belief in the antiquity of this system has now be- 
 come with them a point of faith , of course here the use of reason ends. 
 On this account I shall add to the appendix to this volume a small tract 
 that I formerly published on this subject, which I doubt not will satisfy 
 reasoning individuals. 
 
 t "The author's oriental travelling companion died, and the journey was 
 put off for ever." 
 
Autobiography. xv 
 
 given up the hope of going as far as Egypt : but -nliat I luive 
 finished of my work must first be printed. Could I but ensure 
 myself a strong probability of health and the retention of my 
 faculties for ten, or, 1 think, even for seven years, T should not 
 hesitate on a journey to Samarkand, to examine the library of 
 manuscripts there, which was probably collected by Ulug-Beig. 
 If the stiictest attention to diet and habits the most temperate 
 may be expected to prolong health, I may not be very unreason- 
 able in looking forwards for five or six years, and I hope my 
 reader uill believe me when 1 assure him, thai the strongest incen- 
 tive which I feel for pursuing this course of life is the confident 
 hope and expectation of the great discoveries which I am certain 
 I could make, if I could once penetrate into the East, and see 
 things there with my own eyes. 
 
 In a very early stage of my investigation, my attention was 
 drawn to the ancient Druidical and Cyclopsean buildings scattered 
 over tlie world, in almost all nations, which I soon became con- 
 vinced were the works of a great nation, of whom we had no his- 
 tory, who must have been the first inventors of the religious my- 
 thoses and the art of writing; and in short, that what I sought 
 must be found among them. My book, called the Celtic Dkuids, 
 which I published in the year 1827, was the effect of this convic- 
 tion, and is, in fact, the foundation on which this work is built, 
 and without a perusal of it, this work will, notwitlistauding my 
 utmost care, scarcely be understood. It might very well have 
 formed a first volume to this, and I now regret that 1 did not so 
 arrange it. 
 
 I think it right to state here, what I beg ray reader will never 
 forget, that in my explanations of words and etymologies I proceed 
 upon the principle of considering all the different systems of let- 
 ters, Sanscrit expected, to have formed originally but one alphabet, 
 only varied in forms, and the different written languages but one 
 language, and that they are all mere dialects of one another. 
 This I consider that I have proved m my Celtic Druids, and it will 
 be proved over and over again in the course of the following work. 
 
 Numerous are the analyses of the ancient mythology, but yet I 
 believe the world is by no means satisfied with the result of them. 
 There is yet a great blank. That the ancient mythoses have a 
 system for their basis, is generally believed ; indeed, I think this 
 is what no one can doubt. But whether I have discovered the 
 principles on which they are founded, and liave given the real 
 explanation of them, others must judge. 
 
Xvi AUTOBIOGEAPHY. 
 
 The following work is similar to tlie solution of a difficult 
 problem iu the mathematics, only to be understood by a consecutive 
 perusal of the whole — only to be understood after close attention, 
 after au induction of consequences from a long train of reasoning, 
 every step of which, like a problem in Euclid, must be borne in 
 mind. The reader must not expect that the secrets, which the an- 
 cients took so much pains to conceal, and which they involved in 
 the most intricate of labyrinths, are to be learned without difficulty. 
 But, though attention is required, he may be assured that, with a 
 moderate share of il, there is nothing which may not be understood. 
 But, instead of making a consecutive perusal of the book, many 
 of my readers will go to the index and look for particular words, 
 and form a judgment from the etymological explanation of them, 
 without attending to the context or the arguments iu other parts 
 of the volume, or to the reasoning which renders such explanation 
 probable, and thus they will be led to decide against it and its 
 conclusions, and consider them absurd. All this I expect, and of 
 it I have no right to complain, unless I have a right to complain 
 that a profound subject is attended with difficulties, or that sup- 
 erficial people are not deep thinkers, or that the nature of the 
 human animal is not of a different construction from what I know 
 it to be. The same lot befel the works of General Yallancey, 
 which contain more profound and correct learning on the origin 
 of nations and languages than all the books which were ever writ- 
 ten. But who reads them ? Not our little bits of antiquaries of 
 the present day, who make a splashing on the surface, but never 
 go to the bottom. A few trumpery and tawdry daubs on an old 
 church wall serve them to fill volumes. It is the same with most 
 of our Orientalists. The foolish corruptions of the present day 
 are blazoned forth in grand folios* as the works of the Buddhists 
 or Brahmins ; when, in fact, they are nothing but what may be 
 called the new religion of their descendants, who may be correctly 
 said to have lost, as they, indeed, admit they have done, the old 
 religions, and formed new ones which are suitable to their present 
 state, that is, a state equal to that of the Hottentots of Africa. 
 
 Hebrew scholars have been accused of undue partiality to what 
 is sneeringly called theiv favourite language, by such as do not un- 
 derstand it ; and this will probably be repeated towards me. In 
 self-defence, I can only say that in my search for the origin of 
 
 * Vide the works, for instance, published by Akerman. 
 
AUTOBIOGBAPHY. Xvii 
 
 ancient science, I constantly found myself impeded by my ignorance 
 of the Hebrew ; and, in order to remove this impediment, I applied 
 myself to the study of it. I very early discovered that no transla- 
 tion of the ancient book of Genesis, either by Jew or Christian 
 could be relied on. Every one has the prejudices instilled into 
 him in his youth to combat, or his prejudged dogma to support. 
 But I can most truly say, that I do not lie open to the latter 
 charge ; for there is scarcely a single opinion maintained in the 
 following work which I held when 1 began it. Almost all the 
 latter part of my life has been spent in unlearning the nonsense I 
 learned in my youth. These considerations I flatter myself will 
 be sufficient to screen me from the sneers of such gentlemen as 
 suppose all learning worth having is to be found in the Latin and 
 Greek languages ; especially when, in the latter part of this work, 
 they find that I have come to the conclusion, that the Hebrew 
 language, or that language of which Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic 
 are only dialects, was probably the earliest of the written lan- 
 guages now known to us. 
 
 When I affirm that I think the old Synagogue Hebrew the 
 oldest written language, the ph'dosopker will instantly turn away 
 and say, "Oh ! I see this is only the old devoteeism." He may- 
 be assured he will find himself mistaken. I believe that' I found 
 my opinion on evidence equally free from modern Christian or 
 ancient Jewish prejudice. I attribute the preservation of these 
 old tracts (the books of Genesis) from the destruction which has 
 overtaken all other sacred books of the priests of the respective 
 teniples of the world, to the fortunate circumstance that they were 
 made public by Ptolemy Philadelphus. Natural causes, without 
 any miracle, have produced a natural effect, and thus we have 
 these interesting remains, and have them, too, in consequence of a 
 religious dogma having operated, nearly uncorrupted in their 
 general language, by modern Jewish and Masoretic nonsense. In 
 the Synagogue books we have, most fortunately, several tracts in 
 a language older than any language, as now written, in the world, 
 not excepting the beautiful and almost perfect Sanscrit. And 
 this I think I shall prove in the course of the work. That my 
 reader may not run away with a mistaken inference from what I 
 now say, I beg to observe, that I pay not the least attention to 
 the generally received ancient chronologies. 
 
 In order to arrive at what I believe to be the truth, I have often 
 been obliged to enter into very abstruse and difficult examinations 
 of the meaning of Hebrew words ; but they are generally words 
 
xviii Atjtobioobaphy. 
 
 which have undergone the most elaborate discussion, by very great 
 scholars, and have been the subjects of controversy. This has 
 been a great advantage to me, as by this means I have been 
 enabled to see every thing which could be said on the respective 
 points in dispute, and my conclusions may be considered; as the 
 summing up of the evidence on both sides. As the results of my 
 enquiries will sometimes depend upon the meaning of the words, 
 the subjects of these discussions, I have found it necessary to enter, 
 in several instances, into a close and critical examination of their 
 meaning, as I have just said ; in which, without care and patience, 
 the reader unlearned in Hebrew will not be able to foUow me. 
 But yet I flatter myself that if he will pass over a very few 
 examples'of this kind, which he finds too difficult, and go to the 
 conclusion drawn from them, he will, in almost every instance, 
 be able to understand the argument. If, as I believe, thg foun- 
 dations of the ancient mythoses are only to be discovered in the 
 most ancient roots of the languages of the world, it is not hkely 
 that such an inquiry into them could be dispensed with. 
 
 The letters of the old Synagogue Hebrew language are nearly 
 the same as the English, only in a different form. They are so 
 near that they almost all of them may be read as English, as any per- 
 son may see in Sect. 46, p. 10, by a very little consideration of the 
 table of letters, and the numbers which they denote. In order 
 that an unlearned reader may understand the etymological conclu- 
 sions, nearly throughout the whole work every Hebrew word is 
 followed by correspondent letters in English italics, so that a per- 
 son who does not understand the Hebrew may understand them 
 almost as well as a person who doss. Half an hour's study of the 
 table of letters, and attention to this observation, I am convinced 
 is all that is necessary, 
 
 lu great^riumbers of places, authors will be found quoted as 
 authority, but whose authority my reader may be inclined to dis- 
 pute. In every case, evidence of this kind must go for no more 
 thau it is worth. It is like interested evidence, which is worth 
 something in every case, though, perhaps, very little. But in 
 many cases, an author of little authority, quoted by me as evidence 
 in favour of my hypothesis, will be found to have come to his con- 
 clusion, perhaps, when advocating doctrines directly in opposition 
 to mine, or in absolute ignorance of my theory. In such cases, 
 his evidence, from the circumstance, acquires credibility which it 
 would not otherwise possess : and if numerous instances of evid- 
 ence of this kind unite upon any one point, to the existence of 
 
AuTOBIOGEAPHYr xix 
 
 any otherwise doubtful fact, the highest probability of its truth 
 may be justly inferred. If a fact of the nature here treated of be 
 found to be supported by other facts, and to dovetail into other 
 parts of my system, or to remove its difficulties, its probability 
 will be again increased. Thus it appears that there will be a very 
 great variety in the evidence in favour of -different parts of the 
 system, which can only be correctly judged of by a consecutive 
 perusal of the whole. And, above all things my reader must al- 
 ways bear in mind, that he is in search of a system, the meaning 
 of which its professors and those initiated into its mysteries have 
 constantly endeavoured in all ages and nations to conceal, and the 
 proofs of the existence of which, the most influential body of men 
 in the world, the priests, have endeavoured, and yet endeavour, by 
 every honest and dishonest means in their power, to destroy. 
 
 The following work will be said to be a theory : it is given as a 
 theory. But what is a Theory ? Darwin says, " To theorise is to 
 think." The peculiar nature of the subject precludes me from 
 founding my thinkings or reasonings on facts deduced by experi- 
 ment, like the modern natural philosopher : but I endeavour to do 
 this as far as is in my power. I found them on the records of 
 facts, and quotations from ancient aul^ors, and on the deductions 
 which were made by writers without any reference to my theory 
 or ^stem. A casual observation, or notice of a fact, is often met 
 with in an author which he considers of little or no consequence, but 
 which, from that very circumstance, is the more valued by me, 
 because it is the more likely to be true. 
 
 This book is intended for those only who think that the different 
 mythoses and histories are yet involved in darkness and confusion ; 
 and it is an attempt to elucidate the grounds on which the former 
 were founded, and from which they have risen to their present 
 state. It is evident that, if I have succeeded, and if I have disco- 
 vered the original principles, although, perhaps, trifling circum- 
 stances or matters may be erroneously stated, yet new discoveries 
 will every day add new proofs to my system, till it will be estab- 
 bshed past all dispute. If on the contrary, I be wrong, new dis- 
 coveries will soon expose my errors, and, like aU preceding 
 theones, my theory will die away as they are dying away, and it 
 will be forgotten. 
 
 I have ju^t said that this work is a theory, and professes, in a 
 great measure, to arrive at probabilities only. I am of opinion 
 that, if ancient authors had attended more to the latter, we should 
 have been better informed than we now are upon every thing 
 
IX. Autobiography. 
 
 relating to the antiquities of nations. The positive assertions 
 false in themselves, yet not meant to mislead, but only to express 
 the opinions of some authors, together with the intentionsil falsities 
 of others, have accumulated an immense mass of absurdities,- 
 which have rendered all ancient liistory worse than a riddle. Had 
 the persons first named only stated their opinion that athingvras 
 probable, but which in composition, it is exceedingly difficult to 
 do, as I have constantly found, their successors would not have 
 been misled by their want of sense or judgment. Every 
 succeeding generation has added to the mass of nonsense, until 
 the enormity is beginning to cure itself, and to prove that the 
 whole, as a system, is false : it is beginning to convince most persons 
 that some new system must be had recourse to, if one can be 
 devised, which may at least have the good quahty of containing 
 within itself the possibility of being true, a quality which the 
 present old system most certainly wants. Now I flatter myself 
 that my new system, notwithstanding many errors which it may 
 contain, will possess this quality ; and, if I produce a sufficient 
 number of known facts that support it, for the existence of which 
 it accounts, and without which system their existence cannot be 
 accounted for, I contend that I shall render it very probable that 
 my system is true. The whole force of this observation will not 
 be understood till the reader comes. to the advanced part of my 
 next volume, wherein I shaR treat upon the system of the philcfto- 
 phic Niebulir respecting the history of the ancient Eomans. 
 
 Of whatever credulity my reader may be disposed to accuse me, 
 in some respects, there will be no room for any charge of tMs kind, 
 on account of the legends of bards or monks, or the forgeries of 
 the Christian priests of the middle ages ; as, for fear of being im- 
 posed on by them, I believe I have carried my caution to excess, 
 and have omitted to use materials, in the use of which I should 
 have been perfectly justified. Por example I may name the works 
 of Mr Davies, of Wales, and General Vallancey, both of which 
 contain abundance of matter which supports my doctrines ; but 
 even of these, I have used such parts only as I thought could 
 not vreU be the produce of the frauds of the priests or bards. I 
 endeavour, as far as lies in my power, to regulate my belief accord- 
 ing to what I know is the rule of evidence in a~British court of law. 
 Perhaps it may be said, that if I am not credulous in this respect 
 of the monks and priests, I am in respect of the ancient monu- 
 ments. But these ancient unsculptured stones or names of places 
 are not like the priests, though with many exceptions in all sects. 
 
Autobiography. xxi 
 
 regalar, systematic liars, Ifmg/ropt interest, and boldly defending 
 the practice on principle — a practice brought down from Plato, 
 and continued to our own day. Witness the late restoration of 
 the annual farce of the liquefacton of the blood of St Jaiiaarius, 
 and the fraudulent title to what is called the Apostles' Creed in 
 our Liturgy. 
 
 Some years ago a fraud was attempted by a brahmin on Sir 
 WilHam Jones and Major Wilford. These two gentlemen, being 
 totally void of any suspicion, were deceived, but in a very little 
 time the latter detected the fraud, and instantly published it to the 
 world in the most candid and honourable manuer. This has af- 
 forded a handle to certain persons, who dread discoveries from 
 India, to run down every thing which Wilford wrote, not only up 
 to that time, but in a long and industrious life afterward. I have 
 been careful, in quoting from his works, to avoid what may have 
 been fraudulent; but so far from thinking that Wilford's general 
 credit is injured, I think it was rather improved by the manner 
 in which he came forward and announced the fraud ^practised on 
 him. There was no imputation of excessive credulity previously 
 cast upon him, and I consider it hkely that this instance made him 
 more cautious than most others against impostures in future. I 
 cannot help suspecting, that this fraud was the cause of_much true 
 and curious matter being rendered useless. 
 
 It has been said, that the more a person enquires, the less he 
 believes. This is true ; and arises from the fact that he soon dis- 
 covers that great numbers of the priests, in every age and of every 
 religion, have been guilty of frauds to support their systems, to 
 an extent of which he could have had no idea until he made the 
 inquiry. Many worthy and excellent men among our priests have 
 been angry with me because I have not more pointedly excepted 
 the order in the British empire from the general condemnation 
 expressed in my Celtic Druids, though I there expressly stated 
 that I <?ii^ except many individuals. The fraudulent title of the 
 Apostles' Creed, which I have just named, would alone justify 
 me. 
 
 The following rational account of the corruption of religion is 
 giveu by the cool and philosophic Basnage [book iii, ch. 19, p. 
 217]; 
 
 Divines complain that the people have always a violent propensity to 
 sensible objects and idolatry , and I do not deny it ; but in the mean time 
 d ivines of all ages have been more to blame than the people, since they 
 
xxii Autobiography. 
 
 conducted them to the adoration of creatures ; that they might be able to 
 discourse longer, and to distinguish themselves from the crowd, they have 
 disguised religion with obscure terms, emblems and symbols, as if they 
 were alive ; as if they were persons ; and have dressed them up like men 
 and women. This has trained up and encouraged the people in their 
 cainal notions. They thought that they might devote themselves to the 
 symbols, which were furnished with a wondrous efficacy, and treated of 
 more than the Deity himself. Whereas they ought to give the people the 
 simplest ideas of God, and talk soberly of him : they embellish, they 
 enrich, and magnify their ideas of him, and this is what has corrupted 
 religion in all ages, as is manifest from the instance of the Egyptians. 
 By veiling religion under pretence of procuring it respect, they have buried 
 and destroyed it. . 
 
 Though the labour which I have gone through ia. the production , 
 of this volume of my work has been verj great, yet it has been 
 sweetened by many circumstances, but by none so much- as the 
 cgnviction, that in laying open to public view the secret of the 
 mythoses of antiquity, I was performing one of the works the most 
 valuable to my fellowcreatures which was ever completed, — that it 
 was striking the hardest blow that ever was struck at the tyranny 
 of the sacerdotal order, — that I was doing more than any man had 
 everdoue before to dis-abuse and enlighten mankind, and to liberate 
 them from the shackles of prejudice in which they were bound. 
 
 Another thing which sweetened the labour was, the perpetual 
 making of new discoveries, — the whole was a most successful 
 voyage of discovery. 
 
 No doubt, in order to prevent females from reading the following 
 work, it will be accused of indecency. Although 1 have taken as 
 much care as was in my power to remove any good grounds for 
 the charge, it is certainly open to it, in the same way as are many 
 works on comparative anatomy. But these, in fact, are indecent 
 only to persons of indecent and filthy imaginations — to such 
 persons as a late Lord Mayor of London, who ordered the Savoy- 
 yard statue-dealers out of the city, until they clothed their Venus 
 de Medicis with drapery. 
 
 In all cases brevity, as far as clearness of expression would 
 admit, has been my object ; and I can safely say, though the reason 
 for many passages may not be obvious to a reader who has not 
 deeply meditated on the subject as I have ddUe, yet 1 Uelieve 
 scarcely one is inserted in the book which has not appeared to me 
 at the time to be necessary to elucidate some subject which was to 
 follow. 
 
 It has been observed, that persons who write a bad style, 
 
AuTODiooiiAPiiT. xxiii 
 
 generally affect to despise a good one. Now, whatever may be 
 thought of mine, I beg to observe, that I regret it is not better ; 
 I wish I had been more attentive to it in early life ; but I must 
 freely confess, that my mind has been turned to the discovery of 
 truth, almost to the entire neglect of style. 
 
 I fear some repetitions will be found which would not have 
 occurred had T been better skilled in the art of book-making ; but 
 in many cases I do not know how they could have been avoided, ■ 
 as a new consequence will often be shewn to flow from a statement , 
 formerly made for a different purpose. However, I justify myself 
 by the example of the learned and popular Bryant, who says : 
 
 " As my researches are deep and remote, I shall sometimes take 
 the liberty of repeating what has preceded, that the truths which 
 I maintain may more readily be perceived. We are oftentimes, 
 by the importunity of a persevering writer, teazed into an unsatis^ 
 factory compliance and yield a painful assent : but upon closing 
 the book, our scruples return ; and we lapse at once into doubt 
 and darkness. It has, therefore, been my rule to bring vouchers 
 for every thing which I maintain; and thougli I might, upon 
 the renewal of my argument, refer to another volume and a dist- 
 ant page ; yet T many times choose to repeat my evidence, and 
 bring it again under immediate inspection. And if I do not 
 scruple labor and expence, T hope the reader will not be disgusted 
 by this seeming redundancy in my arrangement. What I now 
 present to the public, contains matter of great moment, aud should 
 I be found in the right, it will afford a sure basis for a future his- 
 tory of the world. None can well judge either of the labour or 
 utility of the work, but those who have been conversant in the 
 writings of chronologers and other learned men upon these subjects, 
 and seen the difficulties with which they are embarrassed. Great 
 undoubtedly must have been the learning and perspicacity of many 
 who have preceded me. Yet it may possibly be found at the 
 close, that a feeble arm has effected what those prodigies in science 
 have overlooked."* 
 
 I conceive the notice which I have taken of my former work 
 cannot be considered impertinent, as it is, indeed, the foundation 
 on which this is built. The original habitation of the first man, 
 and the merging of nearly all ancient written languages into one 
 system, containing sixteen letters, which in that work I have 
 
 * Bryanf, Anal. Pref. p. vii. 
 
Xxiv AUTOBIOGKAPHY. 
 
 sliewn and proved, -pave the way for the more important 
 doctrines that will be here developed, and form an essential part 
 of it. The whole taken together, will, I trust, draw aside the veil 
 which has hitherto covered the early history of man,^ — the veil, in 
 fact, of Queen Isis, which she, I hope erroneously, boasted should 
 never be withdrawn. If, in this undertaking, it prove that I 
 have spent many years, and bestowed much labour and money in 
 vain, and have failed, Mr]?aber may then have to comfort himself 
 that his failure is not the last. I think it no vanity to believe 
 that I have succeeded better than he has done, because I have 
 come to the task with the benefit of the accumulated labours of 
 Mr Paber, and of all my predecessors. So that if there be merit 
 in the work, to them, in a great degree, it must be attributed. 
 1 have the benefit both of their learning 'and of their errors. 
 * In the fifth book a number of astronomical calculations are 
 made. But every thing like scientific parade and the use of 
 technical terms, to which learned men are generally very partial, 
 are studiously avoided; and I apprehend that even the' little 
 knowledge of astronomy which any well educated school-girl may 
 possess, will be sufficient for understanding these calculations. 
 Close attention to the argument will doubtless be required; but, 
 with less than this, my reader will not expect to solve the problem 
 which has hitherto set at defiance the learning and talent of all 
 scientific inquirers. "When my reader comes to this part of my 
 work, he will find, that to make my calculations come right, I* 
 have constantly been obliged to make a pecuHar use of the humbei? 
 3160, and in many cases to deduct it. For this he will find no 
 quite satisfactory/ reason given. But, though! could not account 
 for it, the coincidence of numbers was so remarkable, that I was 
 quite certain there could, in the fact, be no mistake. In the second 
 volume this will be satisfactorily accounted for ; and I flatter 
 myself it will be found to form, not a blemish, but the apex, 
 necessary to complete the whole building. 
 
 How I may be treated by the critics on this work, I know not 
 bat I cannot help smiling when I consider that the priests have 
 objected to admit my former book the Celtic Druids, into librar- 
 ies, because it was antichristian ; and it has been attacked by 
 Deists, because it was superfluously religious. Tlie learned deist, 
 the Eov. E. Taylor, has designated me as the reliffiom Mr Higgins. 
 But God be thanked, the time. is come at last, when a person may 
 philosophise without fear of thestake. No doubt the priests wil 
 claim the merit of this liberality. It is impossible, however, not 
 
AUTOBIOGRAFHY. XXV 
 
 to observe what has been indiscreetly confessed by them a thousand 
 times, and admitted as often both in parliament and elsewhere by 
 their supporters, that persecution has ceased, not because the priests 
 wished to encourage free discussion, but because it is at last found, 
 from the example of Mr Carlile and others, that the practice of 
 persecution, at this day, only operates to the. dissemination of 
 opinion, not to the secreting of it. In short, that the remedy of 
 persecution is worse than the disease it is meant to cure. 
 
 On the subject of criticism Cleland has justly observed, "The 
 judging of a work, not by the general worth of it, but by the 
 exceptions, is the scandal of criticism and the nuisance of literature ; 
 a judgement that can dishonour none but him who makes it.*" 
 In most cases where I have known the characters of the priests 
 who have lost their temper, and taken personal offence at what I 
 have said against the order, in that work, I have thought I could 
 discover a reason for it which they did not assign. As the sub- 
 jects there treated of may be considered to be continued here, the 
 objections of my opponents will be found to be refuted without 
 the odious appearance of a polemical dispute. As for those attacks 
 which were evidently made by the priests merely for the purpose, 
 as far as possible, of preventing their followers from reading the 
 Celtic Druids, and not for the purpose of refuting that work, they 
 are of no consequence. Although it was published in great haste, 
 I am happy to have it in my power to state, that no error of any 
 importance has been pointed out, some few over-looked errors of 
 the press excepted. Various attacks upon it are characterized by 
 the obvious vexation and anger of my apponents rather than 
 by argument. But the attack of one gentleman I think it right 
 to notice. 
 
 The Rev. Hugh James Rose, B. D., Christian Advocate of 
 Cambridge, has honoured it with his notice ; but it is gratifying 
 to me to be able to say, that except one proverbial expression, 
 in toto ccbIo perhaps, improperly used, and a mistake in writing, 
 Plato for Herodotus, and Herodotus for Plato, which, in a great 
 part of the impression, was corrected with the pen, and in all 'was 
 ordered to be so corrected with it, before the book left tlie prin- 
 ter's, and a mistake in writing 7ra|9' 6|op(;i;i', instead of /car* e^oxvv, 
 he has not found any other fault, though I think he has shewn no 
 want of inclination. With respect to the latter error, as I cer- 
 
 Preface to Specimen, p. 
 d 
 
XXvi AUTOBIOGllAPHT. 
 
 tainly herer discovered the gross and shoclcing inadvertency until 
 a great part of this work was printed, I should not be at all sur- 
 prised if somewhere, as I wrote for Greek irap' e^o')(r)v instead of 
 kut' e^oyrfv, I should have written for French Jcat' excellence in- 
 stead of par excellence. 
 
 A writer in the Bishop's review accuses me of being in a rage 
 with priests. I flatter myself I am never in a rage with any 
 thing ; but, I never have scrupled and never shall scruple to ex- 
 press iny detestation of an order which exists directly in opposi- 
 tion to the commands of Jesus Christ — which in no case is of use 
 to mankind, but which has produced more demoralisation and 
 misery in the world than all other causes put together. With 
 this conviction it Avould be base in me to withhold'my "opinion, 
 and not even the fear of the auto-da-fe shall prevent me from 
 expressing it. 
 
 As long as the art of writing and reading was a secret confined 
 to a few select persons, priests might be thought to be wanted to 
 say the prayers for the ignorant ; but as most persons can read 
 now, they are no longer necessary ; and the prayer which Jesus 
 Christ taught is so very short and simple, that no person, above 
 the class of an idiot, can be in any difficulty about it ; and there 
 can be little doubt that .7 csus Christ taught that simple and short 
 form that priests might no longer be necessary. 
 
 Matthew vi, 5, 6, 7, 9, makes Jesus say, " When thou prayest 
 thou shalt not be as the llypoctites, for they love to pray stand- 
 ing in the synagogues " [they go in great form to church and 
 have their pew made with high walls and lined with crimson cloth], 
 " and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men ;" 
 [attend Bible and Missionary meelings;] " verily they have their 
 reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and 
 when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in 
 secret, and thy Father which- seeth in secret, shall reward thee 
 openly. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen 
 do, for they think that they shall be heard for their much speak- 
 ing. After tliis manner therefore, pray ye," &c. 
 
 Here priesthoods and priests, vipers as Jesus often called them, 
 are expressly forbidden. In givimj directions toliat a person is to 
 do when he prays, he directly countermands every other mode of 
 proceeding. In strict keeping with this, not a single word of his 
 can be pointed out in any one of the gospels, which can be con- 
 strued into even a toleration of priests ; and in the vain repeti- 
 tions liturgies are evidently implied. 
 
AinoBiooBAPHY. xxvii 
 
 In the prayer which Jesus gave, he gave a hturgy and du'ections 
 for the use of it, and no human being who has learned to repeat 
 this prayer can ever want any priest or other apparatus. 
 
 Had Jesas considered any symbol or confession of faith 
 necessary, he would have given one. As he has not given one, 
 and, as he did take upon himself to legislate in the case, on every 
 principle of sound reasoning it must be held, that he did not tiiink 
 a belief in this or in i]\a,t/aith, as it is called, (which his profound 
 wisdom well knew never can be a merit or demerit,) was necessary 
 to salvation. This justifies its name the poor man's religion. The 
 poor man's whole duty to God is contained in this prayer, tod the 
 whole moral part of his duty to man is contained in the direction 
 to every one to do to his neighbour as he would wish his neigli- 
 bour to do to him. Its founder left nothing in writing, because 
 the poor man's religion does not require it. 
 . This great simplicity makes the pure, unadulterated Christian 
 religion the most beautiful religion that ever existed. Eestore it 
 to this pure and simple state, and ninety nine out of every hun- 
 dred of all the philosopliers in the world will be its friends, 
 instead of its enemies. In the accounts which we read of Jesus's 
 preaching, he is made to say, that if they believed on him they 
 should be saved. In order to find some pretext for their own 
 nonsense, the priests, by a gross fraudulent mistranslation, have 
 made him. talk nonsense and say. If ye believe on me, instead of in 
 MB, or in my words, ye shall be saved. On this they found the 
 necessity of faith in their dogmas. Some persons will think this 
 a merely triflini/ critical emendation; but so far is it from being 
 trifling, that it is of the very greatest importance, and on it some 
 most important doctrines depend. All this tends to support the 
 doctrines of the celebrated Christian philosopher Ammonius Saccas, 
 of which I shall have much to say in the following work. 
 
 But it is necessary to observe, that this simple view of the 
 religion leaves untouched every dogma of every sect. It shews 
 that the religion damns no person for an opinion. It leaves every 
 one to enjoy his own opinions: It censures or condemns the 
 opinions of no one ; but I fear that it will be liked almost by no 
 one, because it prevents every one from condemning the opinion 
 of his neighbour. If Jesus can be said to have established any 
 rite, it will be found in the adoption of the ver^ ancient ceremony 
 of the Eucharistia, the most beautiful of all the religious cere- 
 monies ever established, and of which I shall often have to treat 
 in the course of my work. Jesus Christ was put to death, if the 
 
xxviii Autobiography. 
 
 four gospeThistories cau be believed, inerelv for teaching what I 
 have no doubt he did teach, that temples, priests, mysteries and 
 cabala, were all unnecessary. Mohamed, by abolishing priests, 
 liturgies, and symbols, and by substituting a simple hymn in 
 praise of the Creator, was a much more consistent Christian than 
 the modern Paulite ; and this, and nothing but this, was the 
 lehgion of Mohamed. The Koran was none of his. 
 
 The priest to whom I lately alluded has called me a misosierist. 
 This he may do as long as he pleases:* How is it possible for a 
 person who, like me, is a sincere friend of religion, not to be 
 indignant at an order which has, by its frauds, rendered the history 
 of all religions, and of every thing connected with them, doubtful — 
 by frauds systematically practised in all ages, and continued even 
 to the present day, and in our own country? I consider that 
 when the bishop's review called me a misosierist, it paid me the 
 greatest of complim-ents. To be called a misosierist is the same 
 as to be called Philanthropist. I am proud of the epithet. 
 
 I have been accused of being fond of paradox. The word 
 paradox means, beyond common ojiinion. "When common opinion 
 tells me to believe that God, the Supreme Krst Cause, walked in 
 the garden, or that he, as Jupiter, carried lo away on his back to 
 Crete, I am not afraid of being paradoxical or doing wrong in 
 adopting the opinion of all the first fathers of the church, and in 
 seeking some meaning which the original words do not literally 
 possess. 
 
 If the priests can refute the doctrines which I teach, they will 
 not lose a moment in doing it ; if they cannot, they will have 
 recourse to turning selected passages and parts of arguments into 
 ridicule. To this they are welcome. I shall rejoice in the proof 
 of my victory. 
 
 I have come to one resolution — never to attempt to vindicate 
 myself from any unfounded charge of ignorance or misquotation 
 in this book ; but, only to notice such real errors in the work, as 
 may be pointed out, and to correct them, of whatever kind they 
 may be. 
 
 Like my learned friend Eusebe de Salverte I shall be accused of 
 
 * My work called The Celtic Druids has never been noticed in any 
 way which can be called a review, except in the fifth and sixth numbers 
 of the Southern Review of North America, printed at Charleston. In that 
 periodical it is reviewed by a very learned man, with whom I first became 
 acquainted in consequence of his critique. , ^.^ 
 
AUTOBIOGKAPHY. Xxix 
 
 rationalism.* I, beforeliand, plead guilty to the charge. I can 
 be of no religion which does not appear to be consistent with 
 sound reason, and I cannot stoop, with the advocates of priestcraft 
 and idiotism, to lend my hand to continae ihe legradation of my 
 fellow-creatures. Since the priests and their abettors have thought 
 proper to convert the exercise of the highest gift of God to man, 
 reason, into a term of reproach — rationalism — I know not how to 
 return the compliment, though I do not like ro render evil for evil, 
 better than by designating their attempted opposition to reason, 
 
 To guard myself against being accused of the disgusting prac- 
 tice of using abusive epithets, I beg that the term devotee, which 
 will often occur, as of course it conveys no meaning against any- 
 one's moral character, may not be considered to mean a bigot, 
 but merely a person very much, or rather more than usually 
 religious, which is its true and correct -meaning. I leave the use 
 of abusive laogu&ge, such as infidel, to persons who feeling that 
 their arguments are weak, try to strengthen them by violence. 
 
 In the execution of this work I have endeavoured to place my- 
 self above all religions and sects, and to take a bird's eye view of 
 them all ; and a? I have favoured none, I know I shall be favour- 
 ed by none. A few and very few persons, those persons who are 
 really philosophers, will read it. The generality, of mankind will 
 read no farther than to that part where it begins to touch their 
 own prejudices or their owrr religion ; then they will throw it 
 down. It is very seMom indeed that a religious person is, capable 
 of reasoning respecting matters connected with his religion. This 
 is the cause why, on this subject, .no two persons scarcely ever 
 agree. And I beg my reader to recollect, that if he take the 
 opinion of a religious person on any matter connected with such a 
 work as this, as there are numbers of religions, the chances are very 
 great, that in some part it must have attacked the religion of the 
 person whose opinion he takes ; whence it follows, that the chances 
 are in proportion of the whole number of religions which exist, 
 to one, that he depends on a prejudiced person and is deceived. 
 All this will operate against the book ; but how can I expect any 
 better ? — for the immediate effect of my theory, if universally 
 received, would be, to render obsolete nine-tenths of all the liter- 
 ature of the world, and to overthrow almost every prevailing sys- 
 tem of history, chronology, and religion. But founding my 
 
 • Foreign Quarterly Review No XII. 
 
XXX AUTOBIOGRAPHT. 
 
 opinion on a thorough conviction, that I have solved the great prob- 
 lem and have discovered the long-lost truths of antiquity which 
 have been so long sought for in vain, I feel no doubt that the 
 time will come when my discovery will be adopted, when the 
 errors in the work or in the system will be corrected, and the truth 
 it contains will be duly appreciated, and that, if 1 have succeeded 
 in developing the origin of religions, nations, and languages, it will 
 by degrees make its way. Besides, the schoolmaster is abroad. 
 Tempora mutantur, et Veritas preevalebit. 
 
 I shall be found frequently to express a suspicion : as for instance, 
 I have a suspicion, or 1 have a strong suspicion. I think it right to 
 apprize my reader, that when I use these words, T really mean that I 
 suspect or coryecture, and that however numerous may be the proofs 
 which I prodace, I yet admit a doubt and by no means intend to 
 place the credit of my work upon the absolute truth of the doctrines 
 so doubtfully advanced by me. Of course among such an innu- 
 merable number of references contained in the notes, errors wonld 
 have been found, even if my eyes had not begun to fail me, and to 
 verify them it is impossible to travel again over all the libraries 
 from Glasgow to Naples. I shall be thankful for any corrections. 
 
 In many places the explanations of words v/ill be found to be 
 given in numbers. This has been generally treated by the learned 
 with contempt. I think it right to give notice to the reader, 
 that, before this work was finished, this huffoonery, as it has 
 Been called by those who did not understand it, and who were too 
 idle or too proud to inquire what could be the cause that the 
 most learned of the ancients used such a practice, will be found of 
 the very first importance, and to be any thing but buffoonery. 
 
 It is also necessary to observe, that if an observation or notice 
 of an ancient custom should sometimes appear, which may be 
 thought to be introduced without good cause, it is not therefore to 
 be concluded that all persons will be of that opinion. I think it 
 right to warn ray reader, that there are more passages than one in 
 the book, which are of that nature, which will be perfectly under- 
 stood by my masonic friends, but which my engagements prevent 
 my explaining to the world at large. 
 
 My masonic friends will find their craft very very often referred 
 to. T believe, however, that they M'ill not find any of their secrets 
 betrayed ; but I trust they will find it proved, that their art is the 
 remains of a very fine ancient system, or, perhaps, more properly, 
 a branch of the fine and beautiful system qI wisdom, \i\\\A\ in this 
 work, I have developed. 
 
AuTOBiooiiAPHr. xxxi 
 
 III the latter part of the work many facts are slated and observ- 
 ations made which ouglit to have had a place in the earlier pnrts 
 of it ; this arose from the fact, that when I commenced printing, 
 I thought 1 had finished my first volume : but, as it proceeded, I 
 continued my researches, and in consequence met with many new 
 circumstances tending to complete, or strengthen my system. 
 Was T to leave them unnoticed ? Tliis would have been a kind 
 of infanticide. Their late introduction may injure the work ; but 
 my object is not to make a book, but to develop great truths, re- 
 specting ancient Language, Eeligion, and the Origin of Nations. 
 
 Sometimes a quotation will be found to contain bad grammar, 
 as, for instance in Book X, Chap, vi, Sect. 1 1, pp. 716, 71 7 ; but I 
 have thought it better to leave it as I found it, than ruu the risk 
 of making an author say what he did not intend, by my correction. 
 Schoolmasters think such things of consequence. They are 
 certainly better avoided. It is a common practice of our scholars 
 to endeavour to tie down enquirers to the niceties which the old 
 languages acquired when they had arrived at their highest state of 
 perfection, prohibiting any license, and making no allowance for 
 their uncertain state before grammars or lexicons were written. 
 Por instance, Buddha and Buda, between which they now make 
 some very nice distinctions ; saying, one is the planet Mercury, 
 and the other is AVisdom, a distinction adopted evidently in later 
 times. This is the counterpart of the Sun and the planet Mercury 
 of the Greeks, both of which, I shall shew, meant the Sun and 
 the Planet also. The same is the case with the Greek words 
 .Epca? and Epoi, one of which I shall be told means Aero and the 
 other Love ; but which I shall prove must have been originally 
 the same, and each must have had both meanings, before the later 
 Greeks fixed the meaning of every word in their language. These 
 puny criticisms are calculated for nothing but the concealment of 
 truthj and are founded upon a total forgetfulness or ignorance of 
 the principles or history of all languages. This will be discussed 
 much at large in my second volume, but T have thought it right 
 thus slightly to notice it here, in order to assuage the anger of 
 those small critics, in the mean time. 
 
 I think it right to make an observation upon an effect of 
 prejudice, which has operated for the concealment of truth in 
 modern times more than almost any other cause whatever, and it 
 is this : it constantly happens that circumstances are met with, to 
 all appearance closely connected with the history of the Jews, and 
 y^t in places so remote from Judsea, and so uncojinected with it 
 
XXxii AuTOBiOGllAPHY. 
 
 tliat our enquirers have not been able to admit even the possibility 
 of any connexion having existed between them ; and, in order that 
 they might not expose themselves to ridicule for what has appeared 
 even to themselves to be absurd credulity, thfey have, without any 
 dishonest motive, disguised and corrupted words without number. 
 Thus we find, instead of Solomon,* Soleimon and Suleimoii; 
 instead of David, Daoud, and, as the learned Dr Dorn calls it, 
 Daviidzej and instead of Jacob, Yacoob, when the name was 
 clearly meant, in the original, to be what we call Jacob. 
 
 In a similar manner, in Hamilton's Gazetteer, the word which 
 in old maps is properly called Adoni, is changed by him into 
 Adavani, and Salem into Clielam. Yide Book x, Chap, vii. 
 Sec. 8, p. 758. 
 
 Another evil consequence has arisen out of this union of igno- 
 rance and prejudice, which is, that many works, because they 
 contain passages relating to matters which have been thought to 
 be comparatively modern, have hastily been decided to be modern 
 forgeries, and cast away. The force of this argument my reader 
 cannot now estimate, but he will understand it as he advances in 
 the work ; on this account the question respecting the genuine- 
 ness of almost every writing which has been deemed spurious de- 
 serves reconsideration. JSfow J would produce, as examples of 
 this, some of the books of the Apocrypha, and, for one, the book 
 of Jesus, the son of Sirach. Something which has caused them to 
 be thought modern, will be foimd respecting this personage in 
 my next volume. The fact, as my reader will see, is rather a 
 proof of the genuineness of that book at least. The effect of this 
 prejudice has been totally to prevent any approximation towards 
 the truth. The discoveries which I have made have been effected 
 by pursuing a course diametrically opposite. If not merely as 
 much care had been taken to discover the truth as has been taken 
 to conceal it, but only Sifair and impartial care had been taken, 
 the true character of the ancient histories and mythologies would 
 have been discovered long since. This I beg my reader always 
 to bear in mind. It is of the very first importance. When I 
 began my inquiries, I was the dupe of this superstition. This is 
 an example of the many things which I have stated that I found 
 so difficult to unlearii. 
 
 • It is true that properly speaking, neithar person ought to have been 
 called Solomon ; but, as the same name of a person was originally meant 
 in both casfes, they ought both to be represented by the same letters. 
 
AtJTOBIOGEAPHY. XXXlii 
 
 For a very long time, and during the writing of the greater 
 part of tliis work, I abstained from the practice of many 
 etymologists, of exchanging one letter for another, that is, the 
 letter of one organ for another of the same organ ; such, for 
 instance, as Pada for Vada (p. 759,) or Beda for Veda, in order 
 that I might not give an opportunity to captious objectors to say 
 of me, as they have said of others, that by this means I could 
 make out what I pleased. From a thorough conviction that this 
 has operated as a fery great obstacle to the discovery of truth, I 
 have used it rather more freely in tlie latter part of the work, but 
 by no means so much as the cause of truth required of me. The 
 practice of confining the use of a language while in its infancy to 
 the strict rules to which it became tied when in its maturity, is 
 perfectly absurd, and can only tend to the secreting of truth. 
 
 The practice of indiscriminately changing ad libitum a letter of 
 one organ for another of the same organ, under the sanction of a 
 grammatical rule, — ^for instance, that B V are permutable, 
 cannot be justified. It cannot however be denied, that they are 
 often so changed ; but every ease must stand upon its own merits. 
 The circumstances attending it must be its justification. 
 
 I have no doubt that the professed Oriental scholars will nearly 
 all unite to run down my work. The moment I name Irish 
 literature and several other subjects, they will curl up the corner 
 of the lip, as they have often done before. Oriental scholars are 
 no ways different from the remainder of mankind, and it is not 
 likely that they should receive with pleasure the rude shock which 
 this work will give to many of their prejudices. It is not likely that 
 they will hear with pleasure, that in all their researches into the 
 history of antiquity they have been in the wrong track. All this 
 is natural, and I find no fault with it — it is what I ought to 
 expect, — it is what has happened in almost every case where an 
 individual has attacked old prejudices. Was it not the case with 
 Locke ? Was it not the case with Newton ? some of whose best 
 works did not go to a second edition in less than thirty years ! if 
 these master minds were so treated, would it not be absurd in me 
 to hope to escape without illiberal attacks or censures ? But 
 there is one thing of which I must complain in Orientalists, 
 —they always appear to speak on the subjects to which they 
 have directed their studies with authority, as if they did not 
 admit of any doubt. But, if a person will carefully attend to 
 them, he will find, nevertheless, that scarcely any two of them 
 agree on a single point. 
 
 e 
 
XXxiv AUTOUIOGRAPIIV. 
 
 I must also make another observation wliich I fear will give 
 offence. Some of them, I think, prize too highly the knowledge 
 of the ancient Oriental dead languages, — tliey seem to think 
 tliat these once acquired, all wisdom is acquired also as a necessary 
 consequence. They seem to forget that the knowledge of these 
 languages is of no other value than as a key to unlock the trea- 
 sures of antiquity. I wish to recall this to their recollection, and 
 to remind them of the story of the chamelion, that otiiers can see 
 «.s well as tJiemsehes. In raaking these observations, I hope they 
 will not consider that 1 wislito depreciate their Oriental learning; 
 far from it. I think it lias not been so much appreciated as it 
 deserves by their countrymen, and, though I think they cannot 
 pretend to compete in learning with the Jesuits or the priests of 
 the propaganda, whose whole lives were spent in the acquisition of 
 Oriental learning, and almost in nothing else; yet I think that 
 the proficiency which great numbers of them have made in the 
 learning of the Kast, in the midst of the performauce of numerous 
 arduous laboui's of civil or military life, is above all praise, and has 
 laid their countrymen under the greatest obligation to them. 
 
 Before 1 conclude, I feci myself bound to acknowledge my 
 obligations to my printer, Mr Smallfield, not only for his punc- 
 tuality aud atlention,bnt for many orthographical and other sugges- 
 tions, which have greatly improved the work. It would have been 
 still more worthy of the reader's perusal, if like the monks in their 
 works, I could have called a brotherhood to my assistance, or if like 
 Mr Bryant,* I could have had a learned and confidential friend 
 to advise and assist me. 
 
 After having spent many years upon this work I have long 
 doubted, as I have already intimated, whether I should make it 
 public or not. I will not deny that I feel cowardly. I flatter 
 myself that I am estocmod by many valuable friends, some of 
 whom I may probably lose by my publication. AYhat shall I 
 gain by it? IVothing. — Postumous fame ? Perhaps so. Is this 
 worth having ? Piiny and Cicero so thought. Is the work worth 
 j)ublishing ? I flatter myself the answer may be in the qffinna- 
 liiie. Is it calculated to do good ? Is it calculated to reduce the 
 power and influence of priests, and to enlighten mankind ? it 
 surely is. 1'lie discussion alone, supposing I am mistaken, mnst 
 
 • Vide his preface to the \?\\tii volume of the 4to editioa. 
 
Autobiography. xxxv 
 
 tend to elicit and to establish truth ; and truth is good. Suppos- 
 ing that 1 believe the publication to be for the good of mankind, 
 am I justified in suppressing it ? In this case, am I doing to the 
 rest of mankind as 1 would wish them to do to me ? A sentiment 
 of the great and good Epictetus is so appropriate to my situation 
 and circumstances, that I think I cannot do better than conclude 
 with his words, except, indeed, it be humbly to imitate their au- 
 thor, and to endeavour, as far as lies in me, to profit by his 
 example. 
 
 If you resolve to make wisdom and virtue the study and business of 
 your life, you must be sure to arm yourself beforehand against all the incon- 
 veniences and discouragements that are likely to attend this resolution. I 
 imagine that you vfill meet with many scoffs and much derision ; and that 
 people will upbraid you with turning philosopher all on the sudden. But 
 be not you affected or supercilious, only stick close to whatever you are 
 in your judgement convinced is right and becoming : and consider this as 
 your proper station, assigned you by God, which you must not quit on 
 any terms. And remember that if you persevere in goodness, those very 
 men who derided you at first will afterward turn your admirers. But, if 
 you give way to their reproaches, and are vanquished by them, you will 
 then render yourself doubly and most deservedly ridiculous. (Stanhope) 
 
 Yes, indeed,, I am resolved I will endeavour to imitate thee, 
 immortal slave, and will repeat the words of the modern poet : 
 
 Steadfast and true to Virtue's sacred laws, 
 
 Unmoved by vulgar censure or applause. 
 
 Let the woi'ld talk, my friends, that world, we know. 
 
 Which calls us guilty, cannot make Us so. 
 
 With truth and justice support nature's plan. 
 
 Defend the cause, or quit the name of man. 
 
 GODFEEY HIGGINS. 
 
 Skellow Grange, near Dmicaster, 
 May \, 1833. 
 
THE AUTHCXR'S PEEFACE TO HIS FIEST EDITION. 
 
 In the following treatise some persons perhaps may think 
 that too much trouble is taken to refute trifling objections : but 
 the author's object has been, if possible, to prevent reply. And 
 he has not attempted to refute any objection which has not, at 
 one time or other, been advanced by persons with whom he has 
 argued on the subject. 
 
 He flatters himself that not one word will be found in the 
 whole, which can give just offence to the orthodox or reasoning 
 Christian, or even to the sincere follower of Wesley ; though, no 
 doubt, offence enough will be given to members of societies 
 which suppress vice in rags, and cherish it in purple and fine 
 raiment, — itinerant attendants at missionary meetings — such as 
 practise standing in the synagogues, and in the corners of the 
 streets sounding their trumpet, and making long prayers, 
 (Matt, vi, 2 — 5, xxiii, 14<, 15.) — persons well described in the 
 following epigram, written by a much-esteemed friend of the 
 author's : 
 
 How well the character agrees 
 'Twixt new and ancient Pharisees ! 
 A surly, proud, vindictive race, 
 Who spat upon our Saviour's face ; 
 Because he told them it was wrong 
 Either to pray too loud or long. 
 
 Keppell Street, Russell Souare, 
 1820. 
 
THE AUTHOR'S. PREFACE TO HIS SECOND EDITION. 
 
 When I published the first editiou of this work, I had not 
 the most distant suspicion that the subject had been fully discussed 
 at the Eeformation, and finally settled by the Eoman Catholic and 
 Protestant churches of that day, according to what appeared to me 
 to be the genuine, unsophisticated doctrines of the Gospels and 
 Epistles. Under these circumstances,it is not very likely that I 
 shall let the subject drop, in consequence of the anonymous abuse 
 of the Pharisees, bawling against me at the street-corners, or of 
 the nonsense of well-meaning devotees. I should long since have 
 published a new edition, had not my time been fully occupied 
 with a larger work: but although it is even now prepared in great 
 haste, I think the numerous inquiries for it and the circumstances 
 of the time, so imperatively call for it, th at I cannot longer delay it. 
 
 A friend of the author's has said that he regretted, that this 
 essay was published, as it was better not to make any change. 
 
 Who wants a change ? Not the . author, He wishes to pre- 
 vent a change. He wishes to prevent the fiftyi-two happy, cheerful 
 Christian festivals of our ancestors from being converted into as 
 many Jewish, gloomy days of sorrow and humiliation, which our 
 foolish devotees and mischievous hypocrites are attempting to 
 effect. Other respectable friends of the author's have argued, that 
 it will be prejudicial to pubhc morals to let it be known that the 
 Christian Sabath is of human institution ; that, if the people know 
 it, they will pay no attention to it. So then, at last, the people 
 are to be humbugged into obedience to the law of the land, and 
 to the performance of their duty. This is in good keeping with 
 this age of cant and humbug. A pious fraud is to be practised to 
 keep the people in order ! 
 
 No J let the people know the true nature both of their rights 
 and of their duties ; let them know how far they are bound by 
 the law of the land, how far by the law of God. Let not their 
 morals be corrupted by their being taught that the laws of God 
 may be broken, as in the instance of mail-coaches, if only the 
 profit to be made be sufficiently large. Let not their morals be 
 
Preface. 3 
 
 corrupted by Ijie artificial increase of the number of crimes, hj 
 adding a new one to a catalogue, already, to the shame of us all, 
 quite large enough, — too large for all but the saints, who, having 
 received a call, cannot err. Let not an act, inoffensive in its own 
 nature, or which is only a trifling or venial error or offence, be 
 converted into a great and heinous crime — equal to murder, as we 
 shall presently see— ^an offence or error which every person must 
 fall into, in a greater or less degree, almost every week ; particularly 
 young persons, whose minds are corrupted by the known constant 
 commission of crime. If the Christian festival be not the restora- 
 tion of the Jewish Sabbath, then an attempt is made by fraud to 
 palm upon the people a lie. I wish to j)revent this change, and 
 to abide by the doctrine of the Medes, of the Jeremy Taylors, and, 
 in this at least, of the Calvins. 
 
 I repeat, that the more I reflect, the more I am impressed with 
 the folly of those persons who intentionally create an additional 
 great crime : for be it remembered, that it is agreat cnm^, if the 
 violation of the Sabbath he believed to be a great sin by the person 
 who violates it. Yet it is a crime which every one must commit 
 and which the Government sets the example, and must set the 
 example, of committing perpetually. The almost daily confessions 
 of culprits at the gallows prove that this demoralizing cause 
 is continually in operation. A Sabbath or rest-day on the old 
 orthodox principle, that it is a wise and useful human insti- 
 tution, can never be attended with any demoralizing effect, 
 but the contrary. 
 
 It is a wicked and profligate thing to create a new crime; 
 and its wickedness is exactly in proportion to the temptation 
 to commit it, and the difficulty of avoiding its commission. 
 
 It was no little gratification to me to find, that my ideas 
 upon the Sabbath, which were really original with me, were 
 so very near those of the first Bishops and Universities of 
 England. Between me and them, and particularly the Dean 
 of Norwich, there is so little difference, that it is hardly worth 
 notice ; and -it never would have been noticed if the other 
 doctrines of this great man — in fact, the orthodox doctrines 
 of the Church of England — ^had not been opposed by a set of 
 
4 Pkeface. 
 
 canting hypocrites, who, for their own purposes, are endeavour- 
 ing to delude the ignorant and unwary, and to propagate' a 
 prava et exitiabilis superstitio. The author now calls upon all 
 the sober-minded, old-fashioned, orthodox, as well as the sincere- 
 ly evangelical English clergymen, to support him — his doc- 
 TKiNE — which is the true gospel doctrine, and the doctrine of the 
 Church of England, as expounded by her most celebrated Univer- 
 sities, Bishops and Divines, and to oppose the pernicious change 
 which, it is feared, is about to take place. 
 
 Several replies to my book were published} but my principal 
 opponent was the Rev. Mr Hughes. Erom his situation, as 
 Christian advocate at the University of Cambridge, he may be 
 considered as an official opponent, and therefore I shall answer 
 him in the Appendix, where I think it necessary.* 
 
 It is a great pleasure to me to have so learned, liberal and 
 candid an adversary. Adversary, indeed, he can hardly be called. 
 He asks, " Where, then, you may say, lies the difference between 
 us ? To this I answer — chiefly in a definition, or in the significa- 
 tion of a term.'' After this, the author feels that he may rank the 
 learned and liberal part of the University on his side. He troubles 
 not himself about the Pharisees. The three propositions of Mr. 
 Hughes are as follow : 
 
 " 1. That a seventh day was, immediately after the creation, 
 sanctified by the Creator, or set apart to be kept holy, in eternal 
 remembrance of his having rested from his works. 
 
 3. That, after this ordinance had fallen into neglect through 
 the corruption and ignorance of mankind, it was solemnly renewed 
 in the moral law of the Israelites, and added to their ceremonial 
 law, with strict observances and under severe penalties, to be a sign 
 of their deliverance from Egyptian bondage, a covenant between 
 them and their deliverer, and a type of that rest which should 
 come from the Messiah, by whpm their ceremonial law was to be 
 abolished. 
 
 3, When this sign, covenant, and type was actually- abolish- 
 ed, by the manifestation of Christ in the flesh, the primeval 
 
 H Mr. Hughes's answer, together with the Horae Sabbaticae, are publish- 
 ed in the Pamphleteer. ■ 
 
PitEFAGE. 5 
 
 institution still remained in full force, to be observed by Christi- 
 ans iu the spirit of the gospel, and adapted to the covenant oit 
 grace." 
 
 In the notes I have mostly taken my quotations on the credit 
 of the respectable Church -of -England divines in whose works I 
 have met with them. But I have given their authority. It 
 was almost impossible to verify so great a number, often in books 
 without indexes. I have verified them where it was in my 
 power. 
 
 4 Wakwic!K Stebet, Pall Mall, 
 April 25, 1833. 
 
HOE^ SABBATICJ3. 
 
 1. Of the various rites which have been established by the 
 founders of the different religions of the world, perhaps there is 
 no one which is so intimately connected with the temporal happi- 
 ness and comfort of mankind, as that of the observance of one 
 day in every seven as a day of rest. The appropriation of certain 
 days, at short periods of time, to the purposes of devotion, of re- 
 creation, and of relaxation from worldly cares> seeras to be an 
 institution peculiarly adapted to the improvement of the mind, 
 and to the advancement of civilization. And yet the example of 
 the Turts, the strictest of all the observers of a Sabbath* in 
 modern times, proves that, excellent as the institution is, human 
 perverseness may prevail to render it useless, to defeat the ends 
 for which it was probably originally intended, and to destroy the 
 good effects which it was so well calculated to produce. 
 
 2. The state of ignorance and barbarism into which the inhabit- 
 ants of the countries have fallen, which were formerly possessed 
 by the elegant and enlightened caliphs, makes it evident that this 
 institution is not necessarily accompanied with improvement and 
 civilization ; and after its first institution! amongst Christians, 
 it was equally unavailable to prevent the well-known ignorance 
 and barbarism of the middle ages ; but in each case this effect 
 has arisen by the abuse of it, or in oppositi^ to it, not by its 
 means. Its tendency was evidently to produce a contrary effect ; 
 and it can only be regretted that its power was riot greater and more 
 efficacious. 
 
 * The word Sabbath is a Hebrew word, and tneansl literally, rest. 
 
Honm Sabbatic^. 7 
 
 3. But it is not fair to reason against the use, from the abuse 
 of a thing ; and there is nothing in this world which may not be 
 converted to an evil purpose, and the good effects of wliich may 
 not be destroyed by artful and designing men. A proof of this 
 may be found in the way in which attempts are now* making in 
 this country to convert the institution of which I am treating to 
 purposes pernicious in the highest degree to society — ^to make 
 use of it to create or encourage a, morose and gloomy superstition, 
 the effect of which will be to debase, not to exalt or improve, the 
 human mind. 
 
 4. The Puritans, Evangelical Christians as they call themselves, 
 the modern Pharisees in reality, a sect answering exactly to the 
 Pharisees of old, finding that the restoration of the Jewish Sab- 
 bath, which was peculiarly ordained in the Old Testament for the 
 use of the Jews, is well calculated to serve their purpose, and, 
 being precluded by various circumstances of their situation from 
 having recourse to the expedients of the Catholic priests, to gain 
 possession of the minds of their votaries, have exerted all their 
 power by its means to attain this object.f These are the reasons 
 why we hear more of the heinous crime of Sabbath-breaking, than 
 of all other vices together. And hence every nerve has been 
 strained to the uLmost, to extract from passages, both in the Old 
 and New Testament, meanings favourable to this design, which 
 
 • The second edition of the Horse Sabbaticae appears to have been 
 published at a period when the last generation of Sabbatarian puritans, 
 under the banner of that pitiable monomaniac Sir Andrew Agnew, were 
 making gigantic efforts to foice down the public throat, their bitter pill of 
 Sabbath mortification. 
 
 This third edition is surely not uncalled for at the present time, when a 
 new race of fanatics, guided by lord Ashley, proceeding with the cunning 
 usually shown by one-sided minds, have seized the opportunity presented 
 by an almost empty house of Commons, to impose upon the country, (for a 
 short time only, it is to be hoped) the absurd restraint of a Jewish Sabbath, 
 and have deprived the inhabitants of the rural districts of their greatest 
 Sunday comforts, their letters and Newspapers. 
 
 t No dovibt, amongst the Pharisees of old, ^s amongst our Evangelical 
 Christians, there were many good, well-disposed persons, the dupes of 
 the knaves. 
 
8 HonM SABBATICiE. 
 
 the words will not justify. But tiie fair, unsophisticated doctrines 
 on this subject, as taught in these works, are what it is intended 
 here to inquire into and discuss. 
 
 5. In the whole of the New Testament, a single passage cannot 
 be discovered clearly directing the observance of a Sabbath. K 
 this institution be of the importance which some persons attach 
 to it in a religious point of view, it seems very extraordinary 
 that not one of the Evangelists should have stated any thing 
 clearly upon the subject : — very strange that we do not 
 find the mode described in which it was kept by the first disciples, 
 or the apostles, in plain, clear, and unequivocal language. 
 
 6. It seems reasonable to expect, that if the earliest Chris- 
 tians, the apostles or disciples, had considered that the obser- 
 vance of the Sunday was actually an exchange of the Sabbath 
 from the Saturday, by divine apointment, we should find in 
 the A.cts of the Apostles all our doubts removed : and remo- 
 ved, not by^mplication or forced construction, but by a clear 
 and unequivocal statement. 
 
 7. By the early Christians at first the Jewish Sabbath was strictly 
 kept, but after some time it seems to have been considered by 
 their immediate followers, along with all other Jewish ceremonies, 
 to have been abolished ; but they appear very wisely to have 
 thought, that it would be useful and proper to select one day in 
 the week, which, without neglecting the ordinary duties of life 
 arising out of their respective situations, should be appropriated 
 to the observance of, religious duties, of rest and recreation. 
 This does not seem to have been the act of any regular, delibera- 
 tive meeting, but to have taken place by degrees, and to 
 have been considered merely as a measure of discipline, liable 
 at any time to be varied or omitted, as the heads of the re- 
 hgion might think was expedient. 
 
 8. Prom a variety of passages in the Gospels, Jesus appears 
 in his actions to have made no distinction betwixt the 
 Sabbath and any other day ; doing the same things on the sab- 
 bath that he did on any other day. In reply to this it is said, 
 that what he did on the Sabbath was good and useful — such as 
 healing the sick. This is true;' but he did nothing on any other 
 
HoejE SABBATioa:. 9 
 
 day which was not good and useful : and therefore nothing in 
 favour of the Sabbath can be inferred from this. Every thing 
 which is not bad is good ; and it is wrong to do any thing on any 
 day which is not good. One of the most important of all the 
 Jewish rites, and one of the most strictly enforced by the 
 Pharisees, was the observance of the Sabbath ; and it appears 
 evident, that Jesus performed various actions for the express 
 purpose of making manifest his disapprobation of the strict 
 observance of this rite, or indeed of its observance at all. 
 
 9. Aiter he had healed the sick man at the pool of Beth- 
 esda, he ordered him to remove his bed on the Sabbath-day ; and 
 it appears from John v. 10 — 12, that a very correct and marked 
 distinction was made by the Jews betwixt healing the man and 
 carrying away the bed ; they say, 
 
 It is the Sabbath ; it is not lawful for thee to take up thy conch. 
 
 Afterward, when the Jews charged Jesus with having broken 
 the Sabbath in this instance, his reply was very extraordinary : 
 
 V. 17; My Father worketh until now and 1 work. 
 
 10. If the doctrine of Jesus be deduced by implication from his 
 conduct, from this very instance the Sabbath must be held to be 
 abolished. He expressly says to the observation on the subject 
 of the couch, 'I wor/c' The answer of Jesus clearly applies to 
 the moving of the bed as well as healing of the man ; because the 
 expression is,' these things,' in the plural number j and there were 
 but two acts which could be referred to. 
 
 11. But another observation offers itself on this subject: here 
 is the fairest opportunity afforded to Jesus to support the Sabbath, 
 if he had thought proper. If he had thought it right that the 
 Sabbath should have been continued, he would have said to the 
 sick man, 'Arise, and walk, and remove thy bed when the Sabbath 
 is over.' He would then have taught, in the clearest and shortest 
 terms possible, the propriety of doing good works of necessity, 
 and the impropriety of doing such as were not works of necessity 
 on the Sabbath. In every one of the following texts, an oppor- 
 tunity is afforded to Jesus so favorable for the inculcation of the 
 observance of the Sabbath, that it is very difficult to account for 
 
 2 
 
10 Hoit^ SABBATICiE, 
 
 Ills neglect of it, if it were his intention that it should be continued ; 
 Luke xiv. 4<, 5 ; xiii, 14 ; vi, 6—10 ; Matt. xii. 2 ; Mark ii, 27 ; 
 John vii,22j ix. 16* 
 
 12. Jesus constantly evades the attacks of the Jews on the 
 ground of necessity ; but in no instance does he drop a word ex- 
 pressive of disapprobation of doinff even unnecessary works on the 
 Sabbath. This is named, though it is not necessary_^ to the 
 argument; because if he had expressed himself against doing un- 
 necessary works on the Jewish Sabbath, no consequence could be 
 drawn from this circumstance respecting the Christian observance 
 of Sunday. 
 
 13. In Luke xviii, Jesus has an opportunity, of a different kind 
 from the above, of supporting the Sabbath ; but he avoids it. 
 
 A certain- ruler asked him saying, " Good Master, what shall I do to in- 
 herit eternal life % " And Jesus said unto him, " Why callest thou me good ? 
 None is good, save one, that is God. Thouknowest the commandments ; 
 Do not commit adultery ; Do not kill ; Do not steal ; Do not bear false wit- 
 ness ; Honour thy father and thy mother." And he said, " All these have 
 I kept from my youth up." Now, when Jesus heard these things, he said 
 vinto him, " Yet lackest thou one thing ; sell all that thou hast, and give to 
 the poor," &c. — Vers. 18 — 22. 
 
 14. Here Jesus not only avoids directing the observance of the 
 Sabbath ; but in actually specifying the commandments by name 
 which are necessary to insure salvation, and omitting the Sabbath, 
 if he do not actually abolish it, the neglect of the opportunity of 
 inculcating it, raises by implication a strong presumption against 
 it. But, indeed, in not adding the observance of the Sabbath to 
 the one thing more which was lacking, he actually abolishes it, if 
 the common signification of words is to be received. 
 
 15. The ordering the bed to be removed was one breach of the 
 Sabbath, and the following passage exhibits a second example of a 
 premeditated breach of it by Jesus. 
 
 16. At the first verse of the sixth chapter of Luke it is written. 
 And it came to pass, on the second Sabbath after the first, that he went 
 
 * [See the table of paraller passages from the Testame.nt, in which the 
 Sabbath is mentioned.] 
 
HoR^ SaBBATICjE. 11 
 
 tkrougU the corn-fields ; and his disciples plucked the cars of corn and did 
 eat, rubbing them in their hands. 
 
 17. In this passage it appears, that the disciples oJ Jesus, with 
 his approbation, reaped the corn on a Sabbath-day. It also appears 
 that he was travelling on that day. The Pharisees, as usual, repri- 
 manded him for breaking the Sabbath, wliich he justified, saying, 
 
 The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath, ver. 5. 
 
 18. It cannot be supposed that provisions were not to be had 
 in Judea. It is represented to have been almost incredibly rich 
 and populous : and if Jesus had not thought the reaping the corn 
 on the Sabbath justifiable, he would have provided against the nec- 
 essity of doing it, if any necessity there was. He might also have 
 made use of this occasion to inculcate the doctrine, that though 
 acts of necessity were permitted, all others were expressly forbidden, 
 on the Sabbatli-day. It is very evident that he was traveling. 
 The road probably, as at this day, passed through the open corn- 
 fields. And it came to pass that he went through the corn-fields 
 on the Sabbath ; and his disciples began as they went to pluck 
 the ears of corn ; and the Pharisees said unto him, " See why do 
 they on the Sabbath that which is not lawful ? * 
 
 19. The conduct of his disciples he defends, upon the example 
 of David eating the shew-bread, which it was lawful only for the 
 priests to eat ; and adds, that the Sabbath was made for man, not 
 man for the Sabbath. But not a word is said which can be con- 
 strued in favour of keeping the Sabbath. 
 
 20. It has been observed that only the burthensome parts'of the 
 Jewish law were abolished, but that the observance of the Sabbath 
 is not a burthen. Where is the authority for this ? Is it not a 
 burthen to be refused permission to cut the wheat when it is 
 shaking, or to carry it fi'om the approaching storm ? aU which is 
 expressly forbidden on the Jewish Sabbath. 
 
 21. The abolition of the Levitical law^was intended, but Jesus 
 
 • By this it was not meant that they were doing an unlawful act because 
 the corn was not their own, but_by Sabbath breaking. To pluck the ear 
 of corn is permitted by Deut. xxiii, 25. [When thou comest into the 
 standing com of thy neighbour, then thou mayest pluck the ears with thine 
 hand ; but thou shalt not move a sickle unto thy neighbour's standing corn. J 
 
13 HoRiE SABBATICiE. 
 
 nowhere expressly declared it to be so. The same reason oper- 
 ated in the case of the abolition of the Levitical law as in the abol- 
 ition of the Sabbath, to prevent him publicly declaring it. 
 
 S2I. If Jesus had expressly declared that people were to work on 
 the Sabbath, and that it was to be abolished, he would have offen^ 
 ded against the 31st chapter and 15th verse of Exodus : 
 
 Whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath-day, he shall surely be put to 
 death. 
 
 23, Indeed, the strongest charges brought by the Jews against 
 him were, that he had broken the Sabbath, and attempted the 
 overthrow of the Levitical law. John says, v. 18, 
 
 Wherefore the Jews sought the more to ^ill him, because he not only had 
 EROKEN the Sabbath, but said also, that God was his Father. 
 
 24 If any Jew attempted to destroy the law and constitution as 
 established by Moses, he was clearly by that law liable to suffer the 
 punishment of death, Exod. xxxi. 15 ; Numb. xv. 32 ; Deut. xiii. 
 XXX. xxxi. 14 — 18. * 
 
 25. And that such was the intention of the mission of Jesus is 
 clearly proved by the result, with which we are all acquainted, as 
 well as by the decision of the Apostles detailed in the books of their 
 Acts, by which the whole of the old law is abolished, except four 
 things, which are called necessary. 
 
 26. The Apostles must have known from Jesus what was his 
 intention j besides, acting under the direction of the Holy Spirit, 
 they could not err. "When Jesus abohshed the old law, of course 
 he abolished every part of it which was not expressly excepted. 
 
 27. In Matt, v. 17, Jesus says. 
 
 Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets : I am not 
 come to destroy, but to fulfil. 
 
 This expression appears peculiarly clear and appropriate ; and 
 it seems extraordinary that the learned and ingenious Unitarian, 
 Mr Evanson, should have found any difficulty in it. 
 
 28. According to the account given of Jesus in the Gospels, it 
 was evidently not his inclination to surrender himself to the Jews, 
 
 [• See the table of texts from the Old Testament.] 
 
HoR^ Sabbatic^. 13 
 
 until a particular period, when his mission had become fulfilled j 
 for this reason it was, that he repeatedly withdrew from them pri- 
 vateljj when their rage threatened his life : for the same reason, he 
 constantly sjoke ec[mvGcally when he saw there was danger in spea- 
 king dearly, untH the last moment, when he openly avowed himself 
 taPilate to be the Messiah. The question whether he came t& 
 abolish the old law was evidently a snare ; and if he had' answered 
 it in the affirmative, he would have been instantly liable to suffer 
 death, according to the law given by God in Leviticus, and which 
 he came to abolish : but the answer he gave was ambiguous to the 
 Jews at thai time, although clear to us now, if the correct mean- 
 ing of the words be attended to. 
 
 29. God entered into a covenant with the Jews, to continue 
 until the coming of the Messiah.* 
 
 80. Suppose I enter into a covenant with a man to take a farm 
 of me on certain terms for seven years. At the end of this time, 
 is the covenant abolished ? No. Are the terms or laws on wliich 
 he held th e farm abolished ? No. The law or terms, as well as the 
 covenant, are fulfilled, not abolished; and, as the lawyers would say, 
 the demise is determined. The word fulfilled is the proper and 
 true word to use, and if the word abolished or destroyed had been 
 substituted, it would have been wrong and untrue ; and as the in- 
 stitution of the Sabbath was a part of the revealed law or com- 
 mandment of God, and was in no other way obligatory than the 
 remainder of the old law, of course it falls under exactly the same 
 rule, and as it was not excepted, was with it fulfilled. 
 
 81. It has been said, that the instances produced of Sabbath- 
 breaking by Jesus and his disciples, are of so trifling a nature, that 
 nothing can be implied from them. On the contrary, they were 
 evidently done for the sake of agitating the question of the Sabbath ; 
 and if something important did not depend upon them, they are 
 much too trifling to have been noticed at all. In each of the 
 
 • See Matt. v. 17. [Think not that I am come to destroy the la-w or the 
 prophets, I am not come to destroy but to fulfil. For verily I say unto 
 you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass 
 from the law, till all be fulfilled,] 
 
14 HOU^ SABBATICiE. 
 
 cases they are named evidently for the sake of affording an oppor- 
 tunity to record the expression of Jesus to the Pharisees, which 
 came from him in the conversation which followed his act. The 
 removal of the bed was no part of the miracle, aad was totally and 
 absolutely unnecessary, and directly in defiance of the old law. 
 The act of pulling the corn, allowed by Deut. xxiii, 25, was equally 
 an unnecessary act ; for if it belonged to his disciples, their resid- 
 ence must have been within a few minutes^ walk ; and if it did not, 
 it must have been in the centre of a populous country ; and if it 
 were further than about one mile (a Sabbath-day's journey) from 
 the place where Jesus rested the preceding night, he must have 
 been guilty of a breach of the sabbath, of a most remarkable and 
 unequivocal description, in travelling further than allowed by the 
 law on the Sabbath-day. 
 
 32. In order to form a judgment of the great consequence which 
 ought to be attached to the act of breaking the Sabbath by 
 Jesus, it will be useful to consider in what light it was viewed by 
 the old law, and by the Jews with God's approbation : the reader 
 will then see that the act of Jesus must in him be considered of 
 the first consequence ; not as a trifle, as we at this day consider 
 reaping corn or moving a bed. The following verses will set this 
 in its proper light. 
 
 Numb, xv, 32 — 36 : And while the children of Israel were in the wil- 
 derness, 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, because it was 
 not declared what should be done unto 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 congregation 
 brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died ; 
 as the Lord commanded Moses. 
 
 33. If the character of Jesus be considered, it is very absurd to 
 contend that any act of his, recorded by the pen of an inspired 
 writer, ought to be lightly estimated : this is actual profaneness 
 in a Christian. It is incumbent on every believer in his divine 
 mission to look upon each action of his life as an action recorded 
 for the purpose of example, or of affording an opportunity of incul- 
 
lIoUiE SABBATICiH. 15 
 
 eating some doctrine ; and as suchj tlie moving of a bedj or tra- 
 velling, or pulling corn on the Sabbath, become circumstances of 
 great moment, when recorded by the pen of an inspired writer. 
 
 34. It has been said, that Jesus by preaching in the synagogue 
 on that day kept the Sabbath. If this argument be good for any 
 thing, it shews that the Saturday, not the Sunday, ought to be 
 kept. But in fact this proves nothing with respect either to the - 
 Saturday or Sunday ; for in preaching on the Sabbath-day, he only 
 did what he did on every other day of the wek ; and he evidently 
 went into the synagogue because there the Jews were collected 
 together. He was circumcised, and kept all the Jewish feasts 
 and rites of the old law (unless the Sabbath be excepted) ; then 
 if the Sabbath ought to be kept by Christians because he kept it, 
 all the rites and ceremonies of the old law ought to be followed, 
 because he followed them. This is the necessary consequence if 
 persons reason consistently from cause to effect. As Dr Paley 
 correctly observes, " If the command by which the Sabbatli was 
 instituted be binding upon Christians, it must bind as to the day, 
 the duties, and the penalty ; in none of which is it received." 
 
 35. The fact is, that his conduct appeared to be so equivocal to 
 many of the Jewish Christians at that time, that they continued 
 to observe the Jewish law, with all its burthensome rites and 
 ceremonies, until the council of the Apostles at Jerusalem, acting 
 under the direction of the Holy Ghost, and speaking by the mouth 
 of St Paul to the citizens of Antioch, abolished the whole, except 
 four things. 
 
 36. It appears from chapter the 15th of the Acts, that it was 
 proposed that the Gentile converts should observe the law of Moses. 
 
 Upon this a difference of opinion arose. Now there can be no 
 doubt that if the Sabbath, or any other part of the old law, were 
 to be retained, it would have been here expressed : but the Apostles 
 only require from the Gentiles to observe four things, which they 
 call necessary, and expressly absolve them from the remainder ; 
 and the observance of the Sabbath is not one of the four excepted. 
 
 37. The Sabbath is a Jewish rite, not a moral law, and every 
 such rite is expressly abolished. As the Decalogue, which is a 
 
16 HoRJE Sabbatic^. 
 
 jmrt of the Jewish law, is not excepted, and depends on precisely 
 the same authority as all the remainder, it must be held, unless it 
 he specifically excepted as a code of law, to be abolished also : and 
 the moral laws which are intermixed with the Jewish rites which 
 it contains must be held to depend upon their own truth or the 
 commands 'of Jesus, 
 
 For it hath seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us, to lay upon you 
 no greater burthen than these necessary things; that ye abstain from things 
 offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from 
 FORNICATION ; from which if you keep yourselves, ye will do well. 
 Acts XV. 28, 29. 
 
 38. It is here worthy of observation, that the part marked in 
 capitals is no part of the Decalogue. 
 
 39. Again, in Acts xxi, 25, the question respecting the observ- 
 ance of the old law is alluded to, and it is expressly forbidden : 
 
 As touching the Gentiles which believe, we have written and concluded 
 that they observe no such thing, save only that they keep themselves from 
 things offered to idols, and from blood, and from strangled, and from 
 fornication . 
 
 40. Here, as it is a pait of the old law', it is actually expressly 
 forbidden. The Apostles, acting under the influence of the 
 Holy Spirit, and speaking of the old law — the whole of it — say, 
 We have concluded that they oiserve no such thing. 
 
 41. How can words of prohibition be more clear than these? 
 No STJCH THING ; savc only, &c. If by explanation the Sabbath 
 can be shewn to be continued, there is no expression in any lan- 
 guage which may not be explained to mean directly the reverse of 
 what the speaker intended. 
 
 42. This is quite enough to decide the question, but we wiU see 
 what St Paul thought of it. 
 
 43. Of course all Christians of the present day will allow, that 
 where a doubt shall exist respecting the meaning of the Gospels, 
 or of Jesus himself, if St Paul have expounded it or explained it, 
 his authority must be conclusive and binding upon them. In the 
 following two verses, St Paul has actually declared that the Sab- 
 bath was abolished : 
 
 Owe no man any thing, but to love one another : for he that loveth an- 
 other hath fulfilled the law. For this. Thou shalt not commit adultery. 
 
T^"'^\ HoEifi Sabbatic^. 17 
 
 Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou ahalt not bear false witness, 
 Thou shalt not covet ; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly 
 comprehended in this saying, namely. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as 
 thyself. — Rom. xiii. 8, 9. 
 
 44. If there be any other commandment, it is what ? Not the 
 observance of the, or a. Sabbath. How can any thing be clearer 
 than this ? Besides, it is evident that in this letter of instruction 
 to the Romans, he .would have told them that they were to keep 
 a day in lieu of it, if he had thought it imperative on them so to 
 do. If St Paul be authority, every commandment in Genesis or 
 else-where in the Old Testament is expressly abolished, 
 
 45. But in the following passage Sc Paul goes much further, 
 and not only abolishes the Sabbath, but actually declares himself 
 against the compulsory use of days altogether as necessary appen- 
 dages or parts of religion. St Paul could not fail to know that 
 the observance of days might be converted to the purposes of 
 superstition, the same as all other forms and ceremonies had been 
 by some of the Pharisees, and other hypocritical pretenders to 
 superior sanctity, to the exclusion or neglect of true devotion and 
 the moral law. 
 
 One man esteemeth one day above another ; another esteemeth every 
 day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that 
 regardelh the day, regardeth it unto the Lord. And he that regardeth not 
 the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. — Rom. xiv. 5, 6. 
 
 46. Here, unless we distort the meaning of plain words, St 
 Paul abolishes the compulsory observance of days, or states the 
 observance of them not to be necessary ; but as the observance of 
 certain days may evidently have no guilt in it, he says. If you 
 think it right to keep them, it is well ; but if you think otherwise, 
 it is also well. In both cases, it is to the Lord, to use his 
 mode of expression. 
 
 47. In the second chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians, ver. 
 16, is a passage in which St Paul again expresses himself against 
 the observance of fixed days, or Sabbaths. 
 
 48. Dr Paley prefaces his quotation of this text with the fol- 
 lowing observation : and no person but as degraded a fanatic as 
 
 3 
 
18 HoR^ SabbaticjB. 
 
 Joanna SouthcotCj or the modem Eanters, will treat the opinion 
 of the venerable Paley with disrespect. He says, ' St Paul evi- 
 dently appears to have considered the Sabbath as part of the 
 Jewish ritual, and not obligatory upon Christians/ 
 
 49. If St Paul have evidently decided the question, surely 
 Christians may rest safely upon his authority : he says. 
 
 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a 
 holiday, or of the new moon, or of[ the Sabbath-days which are a shadow 
 of things to come : but the body is of Christ. 
 
 50. By the use of meats or drinks, he must allude to the use 
 of them on fast-days, because the use of them on other days no 
 man ever said was wrong. The same argument must apply to the 
 neglect of feast-days regulated by the state of the moon. The same 
 of the Sabbath ; for it is not maintained that there was any guilt 
 in keeping a day of rest ; the offence was in breaking it : and here 
 St Paul must be construed to mean. Let no man condemn you 
 for the breach of the Sabbath. It seems absurd to construe it to 
 mean. Let no man condemn you because you choose to keep a 
 Sabbath or day of rest. If it be so construed, then it must also 
 be said, (to be consistent,) Let no man condemn you for merely 
 taking necessary food. If it do not mean. Let no man condemn 
 you for taking meat on some days when it is forbidden, it is actual 
 nonsense. But in a few verses he seems to explain his own 
 meaning : 
 
 If ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as 
 though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, (touch not, taste 
 not, handle not ; which are all to perish with the using,) after the com- 
 mandments and doctrines of men? Which things have indeed a show of 
 wisdom in will-wtirship and humility, and neglecting of the body ; nor 
 in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh. — Verses 20 — 23. 
 
 51. In the next chapter he goes on to direct the Colossians to 
 seek those things which are above : ' Mind the things above, not 
 the things below,' &c. * 
 
 [• Col. iii, i — 3. If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which 
 are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your 
 affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, 
 and your life is hid with Christ in God.] 
 
HoR^ SaBBATICjK. Ifl 
 
 52. The whole of this train of reasoning is consistent with itself, 
 and also with what he has said in the Epistle to the Komans, xiv, 6. 
 
 He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord ; and he that 
 regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. 
 
 53. The whole of St Paul's preaching goes to inculcate that the 
 observance of feasts and fasts is a matter merely optional, and that 
 the observance or non-observance of them is no offence, and con- 
 sequently he is directly against the compelling of their observance 
 by law. 
 
 54. In the whole of the Epistles, there does not seem to be a 
 single clear, unequivocal passag'e in favour of the Sabbath. In 
 almost numberless places breaters of such of the commandments 
 as are in themselves moral rules, independent of the law of Moses, 
 are condemned in the strongest terms ; for example, I Cor. vi, 9, 
 10 J Gal. v. 19—21 ; II Tim. iii, 2. * 
 
 55. But in not one of them is a Sabbath-breaker named. How 
 does this happen ? The reason is sufficiently plain. The breach 
 of the Sabbath under the old law was a breach of the covenant 
 with God, and therefore a high offence ; but the Sabbath being 
 alx)lished, under the new law it was none. 
 
 [* I Cor. vi, 9, 10. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit 
 the kingdom of God. Be not deceived ; neither fornicators nor idolaters, 
 nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor ahusers of themselves with mankind, 
 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners 
 shall inherit the kingdom of God. 
 
 Gal. V, 19 — 21. Now the wrorks of the flesh are manifest, which are these, 
 adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, 
 hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, 
 murders, drunkenness, revelling!, and such like ; of the which I tell you 
 before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things 
 shall not inherit the kingdom of God. 
 
 II Tim. iii, 2-5. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, 
 boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 
 without natural affection, truce- breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, 
 despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of 
 pleasures more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying 
 the Jiower thereof : from such turn away.] 
 
20 HoEiE SaBBATICjE. 
 
 36. Although Dr Paley does not agree with the author entirely 
 respecting the Lord's-day, he makes several admissions, which, 
 coming from him, are very important. He says, 
 
 A cessation upon that day (meaning Sunday) from labour, beyond the 
 time of attendance upon public worship, is not intimated in any passage 
 of the New Testament ; nor did Christ or his apostles deliver, that we 
 know of, any command t^ their disciples for a discontinuance upon that 
 day of the common offices of their professions. 
 
 57. Upon this it may be observed, neither is the necessity oi 
 attendance upon public worship intimated particularly upon that 
 day, in preference to any other. Notliing is said upon the subject, 
 therefore nothing can be inferred. So that the proof of the 
 necessity of attendance on divine worship must be sought for 
 elsewhere.* In fact, the non-inculcation of public worship in, 
 the passages alluded to above, proves nothing either for or againt 
 it : only it goes to prove that it was not particularly ordered on 
 the first day, more than on the seventh or any other day, and leaves 
 
 • In the four Gospels, no person can point out a single passage which, 
 in clear, imequivocal terms, directs the observance of public worship. 
 One text may be shewn where it is tolerated : 
 
 " Where two or three are gathered together in one place, I will grant 
 their request.'' 
 
 And one where it is discouraged, at the least, if it be not expressly 
 prohibited ; and where such persons as may not think it necessary are 
 expressly justified for its non-observance : 
 
 "And when thou prayest, thou shalt not he as the hypocrites are : for 
 they love to pray standing in the synagogues, and in the corners of the 
 streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have 
 their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet ; aud 
 when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret j and 
 thy Father which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly." — Matt. vi. 
 5, 6. 
 
 Except these two texts in the Gospels, the author knows not one which 
 alludes to public worship ; — a thing with pageantry, &c., &c., as much 
 abused sometimes by Christians, as ever it was by Jews or Heathens. 
 
 The attendance of Jesus in the synagogues can no more be cited to 
 support it, than his observance of the passover and other Jewish rites can 
 be cited to support the rest of the laws of Leviticus abolished by the Acts. 
 
HOEJS SABBATICiE. 21 
 
 the times for its observance open to be fixed on what days the 
 government or the rulers of the churches think proper. — What 
 is said here must not be construed as a wish to prohibit all public 
 worship J but only to place it on a correct footing as a rite of 
 discipline, and to discourage the fashionable pharisaical doctrine, 
 that all merit is included in praying in the synagogues, and at the 
 corners of the streets, and making long speeches at Bible Society 
 meetings, &c. 
 
 Again, Paley says, 
 
 The opinion, that Christ and his Apostles meant to retain the duties of 
 the Jewish Sabbath, shifting only the day from the seventh to the first, 
 seems to prevail without sufficient proof; nor does any evidence remain in 
 Scripture, (of what, however, is not improbable,) that the first day of the 
 week was thus distinguished in commemoration of our Lord's resurrection. 
 
 Mar. Phil. p. 337, ed. 8vo. 
 
 58. Certainly in Scripture there is no evidence. 
 
 59. In this view of the doctrines of St. Paul, the author is happy 
 to have so learned and respectable a divine as MichaeUs of his 
 opinion. And, indeed, as the opinion of Michaelis is not objected 
 to by Bishop Marsh, his translator, in his usual way by a note, 
 where he disapproves any thing, the author seems to have a right 
 to claim him also. 
 
 Michaelis, chap, xv, s. 8, says. 
 
 The Epistle to the Colossiaiis resembles that to the Ephesians, both in 
 its contents and in its language, so that the one illustrates the other. In 
 all three, the Apostle shews the superiority of Christ to the Angels, and 
 warns tlie Christians against the worship of Angels. He censures the 
 OBSERVATION OF Sabbaths, rebukes those who forbid marriage, and the 
 touching of certain things, who deliver commandments of men concerning 
 meats, and prohibit them. • 
 
 • It gives the autlior great satisfaction to have an opportunity of bearing 
 his humble testimony to the conduct of Michaelis and Bishop Marsh. 
 In reading their works, his pleasure is never diminished by the fear of 
 wilful misrepresentation, economical reasoning, or false quotation. They 
 are as superior to most oi their predecessors or contemporaries in integrity, 
 as they are in talent. His Lordship has been seldom out of polemical 
 warfare, and has experienced the usual vicissitudes of victory, and defeat, 
 
23 HoRiE SabBATICjB. 
 
 60. Some -well-meamng persons, looking about for any thing 
 which might aid them in the support of the early prejudices of 
 their nurseries and education, have fancied, that they could find a 
 Sabbath in the practice of the Apostles of meeting together on the 
 first day of the week. This question we will now examine, and 
 see whether they, on that day, did meet, and if, from these meetings, 
 a rite of such prodigious importance as the renovation of the Jewish 
 Sabbath can be inferred. 
 
 61. There are only three passages in the New Testament which 
 make mention of the Apostles' being assembled on the first day 
 of the week. The first is on the day of the resurrection. 
 
 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 of them. — John xx, 19. 
 
 62. Jesus Christ is described to have risen that day before day- 
 light in the morning, and after all the various events which in the 
 course of the first part of that eventful day had happened to several 
 of them, it was very natural that they should assemble together as 
 soon as possible, to confer respecting them, and to consider what 
 was the proper line of conduct for them to pursue. It is absurd 
 to suppose that this assembly could be held to celebrate the rites 
 of the religion, before the apostles were all of them satisfied that 
 he had risen, and that his body had not been stolen, as it is stated 
 that some of them at first suspected. The peculiar accidental cir- 
 cumstances evidently caused this meeting to be as soon as possible 
 after the resurrection, and it would have been the fourth or any 
 other day, if Jesus had happened to have arisen on that day. 
 
 63. But it is necessary to observe, for the information of such 
 persons as have not made the Jewish customs and antiquities their 
 study, that the computation of time amongst the Jews was very 
 
 (the latter, for instance, by Gandolphy) ; but conqueror or conquered he 
 has never stooped to the meanness of a pious fraud. It is one of the misfor- 
 tunes of the author, never to have had the opportunity either to speak to 
 or to see the venerable bishop, one of the greatest ornaments of the bench 
 in the present day. 
 
HoR^ Sabbatic^. 23 
 
 different from ours : and it is evidently necessary to consider the 
 words of the texts with reference to their customs, not to ours . 
 Our day begins at or after twelve o' clock at night, theij's began 
 at or after six o' clock in the evening. In Genesis it is said 
 And the evening and the morning were the first day. 
 
 If the day had begun as ours does, it would have been said, The 
 morning and the evening were the first day ; and in Levit. xxiii, 
 32, it is said. 
 
 From even to even shall you celebrate your Sabbath. 
 
 Consequently, the Jewish Sabbath began on Friday evening at 
 about six o' clock, and their supper, or, as it is called, their break- 
 ing of bread, took place immediately after ; the candles being ready 
 lighted, and the viands being placed on the tables, so that no work 
 by the servants might be necessary ; and there they remained on 
 the tables till after six the next evening.. The custom of breaking 
 bread in token of amity and brotherly love, was an old custom 
 among the Jews, something like the giving of salt among the 
 Arabians, and is continued amongst them to this day. 
 
 64i. By the word da^ two clear and divstinct ideas are expressed ; 
 it means the light part of the twenty-four hours, in opposition to 
 the dark part of them, and it means the period itself of the 
 twenty-four hours — one revolution of the earth upon its axis. 
 
 65. In the expression here, (Ae same day at evening, the word 
 day must mean day-light part of the day, in opposition to the 
 dark part of it — the night ; because Jesus could not have appeared 
 literally on the evening of the first day of the week ; that is, after 
 six o' clock on the Saturday evening, he not having risen at that 
 time ; therefore this meeting, being probably after six o' clock in 
 the evening, on account of tlie return of the two Apostles from 
 Emmaus that day, the day of the resurrection (Luke xxiv, 30 j) it 
 in fact, must have taken place, though on the first day-light day, 
 a little before sunset ; yet, on the second, not on the first Jewish 
 day of the week. It is not surprising that persons should find a 
 difficulty in clearing their minds from the prejudices, created by 
 long habit and education, respecting the question and expression 
 
24 HOB^ SABBATICiE. 
 
 of the first day of the week. But if they will only give themselves 
 the trouble carefully to examine, the truth must prevail. 
 
 66. For these various reasons, whether the meeting named in 
 John XX, 19, be considered the first day of the week, or the second, 
 no inference in favour of a Sabbatical observance of the Sunday 
 can be deduced : for it was merely accidental whether it were the 
 first day or the second. 
 
 .67. In the 26th verse of the twentieth chapter of John, it is 
 said. 
 
 And after eight days, again his disciples were within, and Thomas with 
 them. 
 
 68. Whether the meeting above alluded to was on the first or 
 second day of the week, it does not seem clear how this, the day 
 after eight days, should be the first, i. e. the eighth day. It may 
 have been the ninth in one case, and the tenth in the other ; but 
 in no case can it have been the first or the eighth day. If this 
 passage meant to describe the meeting to have been on the first 
 day of the week, it would have said. On the first day ; or After 
 seven days ; or. On the day after the' Sabbath. The expression 
 evidently proves that it could not be the first. 
 
 69. The next passage, which is in the Acts of the Apostles, xx, 
 7, is as follows ; 
 
 And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together 
 to break bread, Paul preached unto them (ready to depart on the morrow), 
 and continued his speech until midnight. 
 
 70. It has been justly observed by a learned layman, in his 
 controversy with Dr Priestley, that this meeting, according to the 
 Jewish custom, form of language, and mode of computation, could 
 have taken place at no other time than after six o' clock on Sat- 
 urday evening : there was but one time, viz. the evening of each 
 day, when they met for the purpose of breaking of bread ; and it 
 therefore necessarily follows, that the preaching of Paul must have 
 taken place on the Saturday night, after six o'clock, by our 
 mode of computation, ready to depart on the morrow, at 
 day-break. Surely the preaching of Paul on Saturday night, and 
 
Hou^ SabbaticjE. 52 
 
 his travelling on the Sunday, cannot be construed into a proof 
 that he kept the Sunday as a Sabbath. 
 
 71. In the only subsequent passage where the first day of the 
 week is named, I Cor. xvi, 2, the same gentleman has shewn, 
 that if any inference is to be drywn from the words contaixied in 
 it, they go against the observance of it as a Sabbath, and imply 
 that a man on that day was to settle his accounts of the week pi 
 ceding, that he might be able to ascertain what; he could lay up 
 in store against Paul came. 
 
 Upon tha first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, 
 as Gjd hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come. 
 
 72. How can any one see in this verse, a proof that the first 
 d,iy of the w,?ek was to be kept by Christians as an obligation, as 
 a Jewish Sabbath? It is well known that at first the Christians 
 strictly kept the Jewish Sabbath; therefore they could not make 
 a weekly settlement of their accounts till the day after the Sabbath, 
 which was the first. It is observed by the same learned person, 
 in his controversy with Dr Priestley, 
 
 I would as soon mispend my time in attempting to prove that the sun 
 shone at noon-day, to a person who should persist in affirming it to be 
 then midnight darkness, as I would co.iteal with any one who will assert, 
 that an expi-ess precept for a man to lay by money, in his own custody, 
 signifies that he should deposit it in the custody of another PEasoN : or 
 who, well knowing that in the time of the Apostles, the hour of assembling 
 together, both for their ordinary chief meal, and for the celebration of the 
 Lord's supper, was in the evening, at the beginning of the Jewish day, per- 
 sists in maintaining, that a predication which St Luke informs us took 
 place at that particular time, did not commence then, but at an hour 
 when they never asse.nbled for tho33 purposes. I will, therefore, only 
 remark, on the latter instance, that I am sorry to appear so ignorant to Dr 
 Priestley, as not to have known, that amongst the Jews, as in every other 
 nation, the wjrd day was Uied sometimes to denote the periodical revolut- 
 ion of twenty four hours ; at others to express dayl ght, in opposition to 
 darkness or night. I am sure the force of my argument required that it 
 should be so understood. And I oulj' quoted the beginning of Acts iv, to 
 convince Sabsidiarius, whose head seemed to be prepossessed with modern 
 English ideas, that though the word morrow, or morning, in our language 
 signifies the n.-xt civil day, because our evening aud subseq'.ent morning 
 
 4 
 
26 HoEyE Sabbatic^. 
 
 are in different days, yet amongst the Jews, when opposed to the preced- 
 ing night or evening, it meant tlie same civil day ; because, with them, the 
 evening and following morning were in the same day. 
 
 73. The texts here cited being disposed of, it is only necessary 
 to observe, that there is not the smallest evidence to be found, 
 either positive or presumptive, that the Apostles or disciples of 
 Jesas considered the first day of the week, in any way whatever 
 different from the following five. 
 
 74. In tlie first two Epistles of John will be found many pass- 
 ages inculcating obedience to the commandments of God, and of 
 Jesus, in general terms, and specifying some ordinances as com- 
 mandments, which are not to be found in the Decalogue : whence 
 it appears thati the vrord commandment cannot be construed to 
 apply exclusively to the Decalogue, or to mean any one command- 
 ment in particular ; especially one like the observance of the Sab- 
 bath, that is not binding by any moral law, — one which must 
 depend entirely, either in the old or new law, upon a specific 
 revelation, and not upon the general principles of morality which 
 have been acknowledged in all ages and nations, — one which is 
 actually, as has been shewn in the Acts, xv, 28, specifically abol- 
 ished by Jesus, — and one which, by the instances of the miracle 
 of the pool of Bethesda and the reaping of the corn, is also abol- 
 ished, if any rule of conduct can be deduced from his actions. 
 
 75. If there be two ways of construing the New Testament, 
 or any work whatever, one of which makes it totally incon- 
 sistent with itself and the other consistent, common sense dictates, 
 that the latter should be adopted. Now, if we maintain that by 
 commandments all the Decalogue or the orders in Leviticus are 
 meant, we expressly contradict the passage of the Acts, where all 
 the old law is abolished except four particulars, and we make 
 the book inconsistent with itself. But if we construe it, that in 
 this passage of John the word commandment only means these 
 which are excepted, and those given in addition by Jesus, the 
 whole is consistent. 
 
 76. It cannot be said that by this the laws of morality laid 
 
HOR^ SABBlTCiE. 27 
 
 down in the Decalogue are abolislied, because if tliey did not remain 
 fii-ra on the general principles of the moral law o£ all nations^ yet 
 every law of m.orality essential to the welfare of mauiiud, is except- 
 ed from the abolition in various places ; for instance, in T Cor. vi, 
 9, 10. Gal. V, 10, 20. II Tim. iii, 2, where particular parts of 
 the old law are alluded lo and re-enacted, and in I John iii, 
 23, iv, 21, where new commandments of morality are given much 
 superior to some of the old ones, and the meaning of the word 
 commandment is actually ex[)lained. 
 
 77. By tliis reasoning we are no longer encumbered with some 
 parts of the Decalogue, which, to say the least of them, it is not 
 easy to explain in a manner satisfactory to the minds of young 
 persons, and even of many serious, thinking persons of more 
 mature age ; who find a difficulty in reconciling their minds to 
 such pasages as that relating to a jealous God — a passage merely 
 applicable to the Jews. 
 
 87. Some persons have supposed, that the word command- 
 ments in the Old Testament necessarily means the Decalogue, 
 and the Decalogue exclusively. This interpretation cannot be 
 supported, because the word commandment is used in its common 
 usual sense, as a command or order of God, before the Decalogue 
 was given, as in Exod. xvi. 28 : 
 
 And the Lord said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my com- 
 mandments and my laws? 
 
 79. The pious Christian will not forget, that the moral law is 
 not entirely dependent either on the law of Moses or of Christ, 
 though they have confirmed it, yet it was binding on all mankind 
 before Moses or Jesus were either of them born. Although 
 there were no Jews or Christians, can it be suppostd that the 
 moral law, the law of right and wrong, was unknown to Abraham 
 and the patriarchs before him? This would indeed be absurd 
 enough. It must be also recollected, that the whole law of 
 morality is not contained in the Decalogne : and yet the breach 
 of this law, although in instances where it is not named in that 
 code, is a sin, both to Jews and others. 
 
28 HoKvE Sabbatic^, 
 
 80. Nor will a man be held blameless if he keep all the laws 
 of the Decalogue^ and commit some sins not therein named. 
 Tor there are several heinous sins not named in that code. All 
 the sins against the moral law prohibited in the Decalogue, and 
 several others therein not named, are forbidden by Jesus and 
 Paul over and over again. Therefore, as a code of law, what loss 
 can the abolition of the Decalogue be ? Is not the new law which 
 God delivered by Jesus, as binding as that delivered by Moses ? 
 
 81. It is well known that the version of the Pentateuch called 
 the Septuagint, was anciently translated from the Hebrew into 
 the Greek language, by certain Jews, either for the use of Ptolemy 
 Philadelphus, or of their countrymen residing at Alexandria.* 
 When these persons came to the translation of the word Jehovah, 
 they found themselves in a difficulty ; for it was an acknow- 
 ledged doctrine of their religion, never disputed by any of their 
 prophets or priests that this name, by which God had thought 
 proper to designate himself in the third verse of the sixth chapter 
 of Exodus, ought never to be M'rilten or spoken upon any occa- 
 sion, except the most awful and important. And it is the use or 
 abuse of this particular name of God, to which the Jews always 
 understood tlie command of the Decalogue to apply, which we 
 render by the words, 
 
 Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain ; 
 but which ought to be rendered, 
 
 Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy God in vain. 
 
 This word, Jehovah, was inscribed on the golden plate on the 
 forehead of the High-priest, when he entered the Holy of Holies, 
 and also on his breast-plate : and lest it should suffer any change, 
 it was written in the Samaritan letters, those in which the Penta- 
 
 [* The translation called the Septuagint, is thought to have been ^iiade 
 about the year 28 before Christ : but there have not been wanting bold 
 critics to assert that the Greek is the original, and the Hebrew the 
 translation.] 
 
IloiijE SABBATlCiE. 29 
 
 teuch was originally written, and from which it was translated 
 into Hebrew by Ezra, after the Captivity.* In the time of St 
 Jerom., it still continued written in many Hebrew and Greek 
 Bibles in the Samaritan character. AVhen the Jews came to this 
 word in their translations, in order to avoid the profaneness of 
 writing it literally, they adopted the word Kvpio;, or Lord ; and 
 thus got over the difficulty. But this contrivance does not in 
 any way alter the nature of the command of the Decalogue, which 
 still continues in all its original force applicable to the .Tews, and 
 to all Christians too, if they maintain the Decalogue to be excepted 
 from the abolition of the other commandments of God in Exodus 
 and Leviticus. Christians say, this interpretation of the word is 
 only au idle superstition of the Jews. It is no more idle super- 
 stition to them, than is the prohibition to sow blended corn, or 
 plough with au ox yoked to an ass. It is an idle superstition to 
 the Christian, because Jesus abolished it in not excepting it. If 
 Jesus did not abolish the Decalogue as a code of law, then we 
 must no more write the word Jehovah : for the Decalogue applies 
 solely to the use of the word Jehovah, and not to our disgraceful 
 and odioas habit of profane swearing, to which our moderu tran- 
 slators have applied it. Does the considerate and unprejudiced 
 Christian really think, that Jesus intended this doctrine respect- 
 ing the use of the word Jehovah to be continued by Christians ? 
 What has been said respecting the word Jehovah in the Decalogue 
 cannot be disputed ; and when Christian priests call the construc- 
 tion given to it by the Jews an idle superstition, they surely can 
 neither be praised for their piety nor for their prudence. The 
 reverence for the peculiar name Jehovah commanded to the 
 Jews, was one of those things not intended to be continued under 
 the Christian dispensation, and therefore was not excepted by 
 Jesus, when he was abolishing the Jewish code. And the very 
 circumstance shews that tlie Decalogue, as a code of law, was not 
 
 [• This is a mere conjecture ; no evidence can be produced to prove it.] 
 
30 HoR^ Sabbatic^. 
 
 intended to be continued. In translating the Old Testament, 
 Christians do wrong in not translating the word Jehovah literally. 
 The Jews were not only excusable in translating it by the word 
 Lord, but they would have been sinful if they had translated it 
 literally. 
 
 83. Persons must not entertain the idea, that because the ten 
 laws in the Decalogue were intended solely for the Jews, tfie laws 
 of morality were not binding upon others. They were bound by 
 them just as much as if the Decalogue had never been promul- 
 gated. If the Decalogue as a code of law were binding upon 
 the Gentiles, then were Ihey bound to keep the Sabbath; and 
 surely no one can pretend that that was ever intended, or that a 
 single word in all the Bible can be shewn expressive of disappro- 
 bation of the conduct of the Gentiles in not keeping it. Persons 
 reasoning correctly, must remember that the observance of the 
 Sabbath is not a moral law, but a rite of discipline. 
 
 83. The Decalogue was no more binding on the Jews than any 
 other of God's commands. There can be no distinction or pre- 
 ference of one command to another. All the commands of God 
 are alike entitled to instant, unqualified obedience. Nor can any 
 doctrine so contrary to the character of God, be deduced from 
 the giving of the Decalogue by him to the Jews, as that, of one 
 command being more worthy of obedience than another. 
 
 84. The state of the case with the Decalogue is precisely like 
 what often takes place with the English law. The Parliament, 
 for reasons sometimes good and sometimes bad, passes a declara- 
 tory act to declare what the law is, or perhaps to increase the 
 penalties for an offence. This act then becomes a part of the 
 English code. It afterward passes an act to repeal this act : 
 by this the law reverts to its original state, as if no such act had 
 ever been passed. This was the case with respect to the doctrine of 
 the Trinity : an act was passed to declare or to increase the 
 penalties for impugning it ; that act has been repealed ; but the 
 judges have declared, that though that act has been repealed, it 
 is still, at common law, an offence to impugn the Trinity, and that 
 
HoKjE SABBAIlCiE. 31 
 
 it is punishable by them. Thus, when the Decalogue, as a code 
 of law, was abrogated, the laws of morality reverted to exactly 
 what they were in the time of Abraham ; and as such they remaiu 
 to Christians, unless Jesus added any thing to them ; and this we 
 know that he did ; for he expressly says, 
 
 A new_commandment give I unto you — Love one another. 
 
 85. At this day no Christians will maintain that the laws of 
 Moses are any longer obligatory upon them : and yet Jesus has 
 not expressly made any declaration to that effect. He obeyed 
 them all strictly, with the exception of that law relating to the 
 Sabb ith, which he took various opportunities of violating ; and, 
 most absurdly, this is the only part of the ceremonial, or not 
 strictly moral law, which is now attempted to be retained by the 
 modern Pharisees. His doctrine was so equivocal respecting the 
 old law, that the Apostles themselves did not understand it, even 
 after they had received the Holy Spirit. For we find the inspir- 
 ed Peter defending the old Jewish law at Antioch ; aud this 
 must have been many years after the death of Jesus ; because the 
 Apostles remained at Jerusalem some years before they separated 
 on their missions to the Gentiles ; if the early fathers are to be 
 believed, twelve years. 
 
 86. If there be yet any persons who believe that the Sabbath 
 was not abolished by Jesus Christ, they are requested to observe, 
 that they are bound to keep it as the Jews kept it ; they can nei- 
 ther light a fire nor cook meat on the Sabbath ; and for the 
 punishment to which they render themselves liable, if they do, 
 they are referred to Numbers xv, 32 — 36, already quoted. 
 
32 B.OVLJE SaBBATICjE. 
 
 H ORiE SABBATICiE. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 1. Fe-om the foUov.'ing verse in the second chapter of Genesis, 
 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctifind it; because that in it 
 
 he had rested from all the work which God created and made. 
 
 2. Many persons have maintained, that the Sabbath was insti- 
 tuted at the creation, and therefore that it is binding on all man- 
 kind, and not confined to the Jews, This would seem a fair 
 inference, if the contrary were not expressly declared ; and there- 
 fore the book of Genesis must be considered to have been written, 
 by Moses writing the account two thousand five hundred years 
 after the event, proleptically.* And it is a very strong circum- 
 stance in favour of this, that it cannot be shewn from the sacred 
 books, that any one of the Patriarchs before the flood, or after 
 it, ever kept a Sabbath, or that it ever was kept, until ordered by 
 Moses on the journey of the Israelites from Egypt to Sinai. If 
 the first Patriarchs had kept it, in the history of more than two 
 thousand five hundred years from Adam to Moses, it must have 
 
 * Paley's Moral Philosophy. 
 
Taut nm Skcond. 3.'5 
 
 been noticed or alluded to. Tlie lives and doiiicrtHc. kaiisnctions 
 of Noah and his family, of Abralmtn, Isaac, Jacob, iind Joseph, 
 are very particularly described ; but not a single word is ever 
 said of their keeping a Sabbath, or censure upon tiiem for neg- 
 lecting it, or permission for them in Egypt, or elsewhere, to dis- 
 pense witli it, Ujion the meaning of the above pa;<sage in Genesis 
 the Rev, Dr Paley says, 
 
 Altlioudi tlie blessing and sanctification, i., e, the rcligiona ilistinction 
 and appruprialioi! of that day, was not actually nuidd till ir,,uiy agjs after- 
 wards, the words do not assert, that God TiinN "blessed" and '-sanctified" 
 the seventh day ; but that he blessed and sanctified it Foii tii . r ki:as:..n': 
 and if any ask, why the Sabbath, or sanctification of the seventh day, was 
 then mentioned, if it was not turn appointed, the answer is at hand ; the 
 order of connexion, and not of time, introduced the mention of the Sabbath, 
 in the history of the subject which it was ordained to coininemorate. 
 
 3. When the author of Genesis was giving an account of the 
 orders of God to Adaui to erect a tabernacle, or place of worship, 
 to the east of Eden — to Cain and Abel to offer sacrifice — to Noah 
 also to sacrifice when coming out of tlie ark, and to the latter to 
 abstain from eating blood, &c. ; and when he was describing the 
 institution of circumcision, and the paying of tithes by Abraham, 
 he would certainly have said something respecting tlie Sabljalh if 
 it had been tlien instituted : for, of all tlie rites and ceremonies, 
 there was not one of any thing like the importance of this to the 
 inhabitants of the world, either before or after the flood. 
 
 4, An attempt has been trade to remove the objection whicli 
 arises from the omission of any notice of the Sabbath, by the writer 
 of the Pentateuch, before the time of Moses, by observinglthat tlie 
 very notoriety of a custom may be the reasijn M'hy it is nc^ er named : 
 and as an example of this kind, the circumstance of circunicisiou 
 never having been named, from the settlement of the Israelites in 
 Canaan down to the circumcision of Jesus Christ, has bct'ii pro- 
 duced. But this argument tlie whole of tlie seventeenth chapter 
 of Genesis coinph'tely refutes. All the ; ircumstane^s tliere detailed 
 evidently shew that it had not been commonly used before that; 
 titrie. If the observance of the Sabbath had been a ceiumoii thing 
 
 5 
 
34 ItoTl^ SABBATICyE. 
 
 like tlie observance of circumcision, it would ha?e been named 
 without further notioe, as circumcision is named when Jesus .was 
 circumcised. The difference in the treatment of the two cases is 
 decisively in favour of the author's argument. Wiien the circum- 
 cision of Jesus is named, the history of circumcision is not given 
 as the history of the Sabbath is given in Exodus. If circumcision 
 had been then first instituted, its history would have been given. 
 And the reason why it was not named in the interval alluded to 
 was tills, that there was no occasion for it, as it was universally 
 practised during all that time, both by the Jews and the other 
 nations. The reason why the Sabbath was not named as being 
 kept by the Patriarchs was, because it was not kept by them ; they 
 knew nothing about it. 
 
 5. Archbishop Magee says, note 57, on the Doctrine of 
 Atonement, 
 
 But in what way ia the divine appointment of the Sabbath recorded ? 
 1 3 it any where ass^H-ted by Moses, that God had ordered Adam and his 
 posterity to dedicate every seventh day to holy uses, and to the worship of 
 liis name ; or tliat they ever did so, in observance of any such command? 
 No such tiling. It is merely siid, that, having rested from the work of 
 creation, God blessed thk seventh day, and sanctified it. Now, sofaria 
 this passage from being universally admitted to imply a command for the 
 sacred observance ol the Sabbath, that some have altogether denied the 
 Sabbath to have been instituted by divine appointment : and the Fathers 
 in general, and especially Justin Martyr, have been considered as totally 
 rejecting the notion of a patriarchal Sabbath. But although, especially 
 after the veiy able and learned investigation of this subject by Dr Kennicott 
 in the second of bis two dissertations, no doubt can reasonably be enter- 
 tained of the import of this passage, as relating the divine institution of 
 the Sabbath, yet still the rapidity of the historian has left this rather as a 
 matter of inference : and it is certain that he has no where. made express 
 mention of the observance o< a Sabbath, until the time of Moses. 
 
 6. Mr Beausobre, in his Introduction to the New Testament, 
 expressly allows, and gives his reasons for believing, that the 
 Sabbath was not instituted till the time of Moses. He admits 
 also, that when it was instituted, it was a festival, not a fast; 
 and he points out th(5 circumstance of Jcsns going to a feast on 
 
Paut the Second. 35 
 
 that day (Luke xiv. 1*) . He asserts that it was given as a sign 
 of the covenant ; and was limited to one people, the Jews. 
 lie shews that the conduct of Jesus on the Sabbath places it on 
 the same footing as tiie other Jewish ceremonies. He allows 
 that, in Genesis, the sanctifying the Sabbath-day was spoken by 
 way of anticipation. He says, feastings and rejoicings were also 
 thought essential to the Sabbath, according to Philo, Joscplius, 
 and the Talmudists. — Beaus. Int. Part i, pp. 1 93, &c,t He 
 further savs. 
 
 The account of the creation was not given till after the coming of the 
 children of Israel out of Egypt, with a design to turn them from idolatry 
 and the worshipping of creatures. Moses takes from thence an occasion of 
 giving them to understand, that this is the reason why God hath sanctified 
 the seventh day, and appointed this festival, to be by them celebrated 
 every week. Upon this supposition, the sanctifying of the Sabbath does 
 not relate to the creation of the world, where we find it mentioned, but to 
 after ages. — Ibid. 
 
 7. If the expression in the second chapter of Genesis had 
 been understood by Moses or any of the Prophets to be appli- 
 cable to all mankind, when they were reproaching the Gentiles 
 for their sins in innumerable instances, and enumerating their 
 offences seriatim, (to warn the Israelites against them,) they 
 would some time or other have reproached them for their neglect 
 of the Sabbath. The Bible is almost filled with the reproachings 
 of the Israelites for their imitations of the vices of tlie Gentiles, 
 and for their neglect of the Sabbath ; btit in no one instance is it 
 even hinted, that fteglect of the Sabbath was one of thsse 
 examples of imitation. It also is quite incredible that the 
 Gentiles should not have been even once rej reached for the 
 neglect of this very important rite, if it had been considered 
 
 [* And it came to pass as he went into the house of one of the chief 
 Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath day, that they watched him.] 
 
 t This book is peculiarly used as a lecture book by the Universily 
 of Cambridge, and therefore it is fair to conclude that this learned body, 
 in which several of our most learned bishops are included, has no 
 objection to its doctrines. 
 
36 HoEiE SABBATICit';. 
 
 applicable to them j and if it were not applicable to them, it 
 evidei>tly cannot be applicable to us, 
 
 . 8. We will uow proceed to examine the passages in the Old 
 Testament relating to this subject. 
 
 9. In the sixteenth chapter of Exodus the Sabbath is first 
 instituted : as it is said in the fourth verse, in order that the 
 Lord might kuoiy whether the Israelites wuuld walk in his way 
 or not. And in the fifth verse it is said, that twice as much 
 manna was sent on the sixth day as on other days. In the 
 twenty -second and twenty-tliird verses, the rulers come to Moses 
 for an explanation of the reason of the double quantity coming 
 on the sixth day; and then Moses explains to them that the 
 seventh day is to be a Sabbath, or day of rest ; but he there 
 gives them no reason vi'hy the seventh day was fixed on, rather 
 than the sixth or any other day ; and in this chapter it is merely 
 stated to be ordered to try them if they would walk in the way 
 of the Lord or not. 
 
 And it came to pass, that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much 
 hread, two omers, for one man , and all the rulers of the congregation 
 came and told Moses. And he said unto them, This is that. which the 
 Lord hath said. To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord : 
 bake that which ye will bake to-day, and seethe that ye will seethe ; and 
 that which remaineth over lay up for you, to be kept imtil the morning. 
 And they laid it up till the morning, as Mosos bade ; and it did not stink, 
 neither was there any worm therein. And Moses said, Eat that lo-day ; 
 for to-day is a Sabbath unto the Lord : to-day be shall not find it in the 
 iii-ld. Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the 
 Sabbath, in it there shall be none. And it came to pass, that there went 
 out some of the people for to gather, and they found nont. And the 
 Lord said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments 
 and my laws? See, for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, thei-e- 
 fore he givetli you on the sixth day the bread of two days : abide ye 
 every man in his place ; let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. 
 So the people rested ou the seventh day. Verses 22 — o9. 
 
 10. In several places of the quotation above, a mistranslation 
 lias taken place ; the definite or emphatic article has been used 
 instead of the indefinite^oue. Thus, in the twenty-tliird. verse it 
 
Taut thk (SkcojVI'. 37 
 
 is said, the rest of the holy Sabbath, instead of a rest of a holy 
 Sabbath. Again, in the twenty-sixth verse it ought to have been 
 said, on the seventh day, which is a Sabbath, in it, &c., not the 
 Sabbath, &c. 
 
 11, In the twenty -ninth verse the emphatic or definite article 
 is correctly used, the Sabbath, according to the Hebrew text, the 
 Sabbath being there spoken of as instituted. The author has 
 been the more particular in the examination of these texts, 
 because he has raet with several clergymen, not learned in the 
 Hebrew language, who have manitaiued, that from the use of the 
 emphatic article in the places in question, a previous establishment 
 and an existence of the Sabbath must be necessarily inferred. 
 But the fact is, that the contrary inference must be drawn from 
 the Hebrew text ; and no Hebrew scholar will doubt a moment 
 on the correctness of what is said respecting the Hebrew definite 
 article. It is not one of the points of this language about winch 
 there has been any dispute. 
 
 12. If this related merely to the common affairs of life, no one 
 would doubt that the coming of the rulers of the congregation to 
 iloses shewed clearly that they were ignorant of the Sabbath — 
 that they liad never heard of such a thing before : for if they had 
 known that it was unlawful to provide food, or gather sticks 
 to light a fire to cook it, or to do any other act of work or labour, 
 how could they have had any doiibt what the double quantity 
 was sent for on the day before the Sabbath ? And the answer 
 given by Moses in the next verse, 'This is what the Lord hath 
 said/ implies that the information given to them was new. If 
 the practice of keeping the Sabbath had prevailed with the 
 Israelites wlien in Egypt in their bondage, (a thing very unlikely,) 
 or if it had been known to them that it wastheir duty to keep it 
 when in their power, the book would simply have told us, that 
 tiiey gathered twice as much on the sixth d;i3', because, the next 
 was the Sabbath : there would have been no coming together of 
 the elders, or of speecli-making by Moses. Besides, the text says, 
 that it wa« ordered here to try them, whether they woiild vnilk in 
 
38 HoRiB SABBATlCiE. 
 
 the way of Jehovah at this particular time or not. This is directly 
 contrary to the idea of its being an established ordinance from 
 the creation. It was here given as a test of their obedience — ^it 
 was continued afterwards, as a sign of the covenant entered into 
 betwixt God and them. Nor is there any where an intimation, 
 that the appointment of the Sabbath was the renewal of .an 
 ancient institution which had been neglected, forgotten, or 
 suspended. 
 
 13. In the Decalogue, which is ordained in the twentieth 
 chapter of Exodus, the Sabbath is first given in all its plenitude ; 
 but it is, with the remainder of the Decalogue, expressly limited 
 to the children of Israel. God begins with saying, ' I am the 
 Lord thij* God, which have brought thee out of the land of 
 Egypt, out of tlie house of bondage.' Here he calls the 
 Israelites thee ; and he goes on throughout the whole, addressing 
 them in the second person singular, ' Thou shalt have no other 
 Gods but me,' &c. If the language is to bear its common and 
 usual signification, the law as here given is limited to the 
 Israelites. Upon the meaning of this passage may be applied the 
 very excellent rule of criticism laid down by Bishop Horsley in 
 his controversy with Dr Priestley : 
 
 It i.s a principle with me, that the true sense of any plirase in the Ne w 
 Testament is what maybe called its standing sense, that which will be the 
 first to occur to common people of every country and in every age; — 
 Horsley to Puiestley, p. 23 ; Priestley's Letters to Hobsley, p. 289. 
 
 14. In the twentieth chapter of Exodus, at the tenth verse, 
 the emphatic or definite article has been substituted for the 
 indefinite one, the same as has been done in the sixteenth 
 chapter, as was before shewn. 
 
 15. In this place, where it means to describe that the seventh 
 day is to be a day of rest, it says, a Sabbath ; but where it has 
 
 * The pronoun is here very correctly translated from the Hebrew : it 
 is precisely as it is in English. Not, the Lord God, as he is usually 
 called, but, the Lord thy Gon. But it would have been still more 
 correct to have said, Jehovah thy God, instead of, the Lord thy God. 
 
Part the Second. 39 
 
 refernnce to what had passed before, vi?,. to its previous insti- 
 tution, it says, the Sabbath. This is all consistent with tlie 
 arguments of the gentlemen before referred to. When the text 
 is correctly translated, their arguments are in fact decisively against 
 tiiemselves.* 
 
 16. Again, the Sabbath is ordained, in the thirty -first cliapter 
 of Exodus and fourteenth verse ; and it is here again expressly 
 limited to the chil dren of Israel, and declared to be for a sign of 
 the covenant. God says, it is holy unio you, not unto all tlte 
 world. Again he says, 
 
 Whereforfe the children of Israel (not all mankind) shall keep, &c., for 
 a perpetual covenant, &c. It is a sign betwixt me and the children of 
 Israel for ever. 
 
 17. How can more clear words of limitation be used ? And, as 
 Ur Paley says. 
 
 It does not seem easy to understand how the Sabbath could be a sign 
 between God and the people of Israel, unless the observance of' it was 
 peculiar to that people, and designed to be so. 
 
 Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my Sabbaths 
 yi 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. Ye shall keep the Sabbath therefore , for it is holy unto you : every 
 one 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. Six days 
 may work be done ; but in the seventh is the Sabbath holy to the Lord ; 
 whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath-day, he shall surely be put to 
 death. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe 
 
 • The Hebrew is remarkable for its brevity, and words are often obliged 
 to be insetted to make sense in our language ; in almost innumerable places 
 the helping verb is obliged to be added. Thus in the tenth verse it is said, 
 BUT THE SEVENTH DAY js. There is no authority in the Hebrew for the 
 word IS. The literal translation of the words is, bit the seventh day a 
 Sabbath. The helping verb is here evidently wanting ; and it must be 
 used. It is submitted to the Hebrew scholar, whether it would not be 
 perfectly justifiable in this case to use the words will be, or shall be ? and 
 write. But the seventh day shall he a (day of rest) Sabbath. This would 
 strengthen the argument. It i.s not of any consequence. But no one 
 could say it was mistranslated, if it said, The seventh day shall be a 
 Sabbath. 
 
40 HoiiiE Sabbatic*;. 
 
 the Sabbath throughout their generulious, for ii perpetual covenant. It is a 
 sign between me and the children of Israel for ever : for in six days tlie 
 Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was 
 refreshed. — Vers. 13 — 17. 
 
 18. In the fourteenth vsrse God does not say that it is huhj, 
 but it is holy unto you. h. clear limitation to the cliildren 
 of Israel. 
 
 Kxod. xxxiv, 28 . And he was there with tlie Lord forty days and forty 
 nights ; he did iieicher eat bread nor drink water. And lie wrote upon the 
 tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments. 
 
 19. HoWj after reading these passages, can any one deny, that 
 the Decalogue was given as a sign of the covenant betwixt God 
 and the Israelites ? and it seems to follow, that when the covenant 
 was fulfilled, the sign was abolished. 
 
 20. Upon the reason assigned in Exodus for the institution of 
 the Sabbath, Dr Paley justly observes. 
 
 It may be remarked, that although in Exodus the commandment is foun- 
 ded upon God's rest from the creation, in Deuteronomy the commandment 
 is repeated with a reference to a' different event. " Six days shalt thou 
 labour, and do all thy work ; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the 
 Lord thy God ; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor 
 thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thine oxj 
 nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor the stranger that is within thy 
 gates ; that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant may rest as well as thou. 
 
 And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that 
 the Lord thy God brought thee out thence, through a mighty hand, and 
 by a stretched-out arm : t:ieiiei'ouh the Lord thy God commanded thee 
 to keep the Sabbath-day." It is farther observable, that God's rest from 
 the creation is proposed as the reason of the institution, even where the 
 institution itself is spoken of as peculiar to the Jews. " Wherefore the 
 children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout 
 generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the 
 children of Israel for ever : for in six days the Lord made heaven and 
 earth, and on the seventh day he rested, arid was refreshed,'' 
 
 21. In the following places the order to keep the Sabbath is 
 repented ; but in every ont3 it is limited to the Israelites : Exod. 
 XXXV, 3, S; Lev. xxxiii, 8, 15, xxxv, 8. 
 
Paet the Secojjd. 41 
 
 23. The limitation of the Sabbath to the children of Israel^ and 
 the making it a sign of the covenant betwixt God and them^ 
 expressly negatives the construction put upon the expression in 
 Genesis, that by it the Sabbath was instituted. It is making God 
 act most absurdly, to make him first institute the Sabbath for the 
 whole world, and then give it as a sign limited to the Israelites, 
 when, from its being previously established, it could most clearly 
 be no such thing. 
 
 23. From several of these passages we see that the] Sabbath 
 was ordained as a sign of the covenant made betwixt God and the 
 Israelites. To be a sign was the reason of a Sabbath being insti- 
 tute, not the resting of God from his work ; though the selection 
 of the seventh instead of the third or fourth or other day of the 
 week, was made to remind the Israelites of that event. A.s we 
 have seen in Exodus that it was given as a sign of the covenant, 
 so it was understood by Ezekiel, who says, (chap, xx, 10 — 12,) 
 
 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 
 shewed them my judgements, which if a man do, he shall even live in them. 
 Moreover also, I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and 
 them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctified them. 
 
 24. On this Dr Paley says. 
 
 Here the Sabbath is plainly spoken of as given j and what else can that 
 mean, but as first instituted in the wilderness? 
 
 25. The prophet Nehemiah also expressly declares, that the 
 Sabbath was first made known to them or instituted on their exode 
 from Egypt. He says, ix, 13, 14, 
 
 Thou camest down also upon Mount Sinai, and spakest with them from 
 heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes 
 and commandments : and madest known unto them thy holy Sabbath, and 
 commandest them precepts, &c. 
 
 26. How could it be said that he made known to them the 
 Sabbath there, if it were known to them before? The language 
 of Scripture must not be so wrested from its plain, obvious signi- 
 fication, to gratify prejudice, or serve particular theories. 
 
 6 
 
42 HoBiR Sabbatic-^. 
 
 27. When God fixed the seventh day £o^^ the Sabbath, with 
 Moses, he ohose the seventh to commemorate the finishing of the 
 creation. In the same way afterward we shall find that, when 
 Constantine wished to fix upon one day, to be set apart for divine 
 worship, he chose the first to commemorate the day of the resur- 
 rection. But neither the Sabbath nor the Sunday as a holy day 
 was established, till long after the events in honour of which they 
 were fixed upon, had been passed. 
 
 28. But the observance of the seventh day of the week as a 
 Sabbath, is only a small part of the Sabbatical law. In the 
 twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus a Sabbatical year is ordained: 
 how absurd to take one part of the law relating to Sabbaths and 
 not the other ! If a Sabbath be kept because it is ordained by 
 God; consistently, one Sabbath must be kept as well as 
 the other.* 
 
 • It is curious to observe how some persons can make difficulties in 
 dispensing witli the words of the law, when thereby they gi-atify their 
 passions, their prejudices, or their interest; and how easily in other cases 
 they can dispense with them, or, rather, set them at defiance. They say, 
 the law of the Sabbath cannot be abolished, because it was given by God 
 before the Israelites existed, and therefore is binding on all mankind, and 
 not on the Israelites only. If this argument be good in one case, it is 
 good in every other similar case. In the fourth verse of the ninth chapter 
 of Genesis, it is said, ' But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood 
 thereof, shall ye not eat.' This was said to Noah, and consequently to 
 the whole world, and is coniirmed in the seventeenth chapter of Levi- 
 ticus, where it is said, (ver. 10,) 'And whatsoever man there be of the 
 house of Israel, or of th^ strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth 
 any manner of blood, I will even set my face against that soul that eateth 
 blood, and will cut him off from among his people.' 
 
 The word strangers must here allude to all strangers, and not merely to 
 strangers residing amongst them, or else it will be inconsistent with the 
 order to Noah. 
 
 In the following verses, to the end of the fifteenth, this order is several 
 times repeated, including strangers; and in Deuteronomy, xii, 16, it is 
 again repeated : ' Only ye shall not eat the -blood ; ye _shall pour it out upon 
 .the earth as water.' And in Acts, when all the other laws of Moses are 
 
Past the Second. 48 
 
 29. The Sabbatkj w« have seen, was given as a sign of a 
 covenant betwixt God and the Jewsj which covenant was expressly 
 abolished by the coming of Jesus Christ 5 then it necessarily 
 follows, that the «iga of the covenant shduld no longer be 
 observedii 
 
 30. If a Sabbath be kept because it was ordained by God 
 previously to the time of Jesus, it must be kept as he ordained 
 it ; and how he ordained it> we can only know from the books and 
 the practice of the Jews. 
 
 31. They were to do no work on that day, not even to light a 
 fire 5 no victuals could be dressedj or even put on or taken off 
 the table on that day : the candle was lighted before the day 
 began ; and if it went out, it could not be lighted again ; and if 
 a draught of water was wanted, it could not be fetched. 
 
 32. It has been observed to me, that it appears from Acts xiii, 
 42 ; xvi, 13 ; xviii, 4 ; that the primitive Christians did not relax 
 in their observance of the Sabbath. True ; nor did they relax in 
 the observance of any other part of the Jewish law for some 
 years. They certainly kept the Sabbath until it, with all other 
 Jewish rites, was declared to be abolished by the apostles assem- 
 bled at Jerusalem. They might meet on the Sunday as Christians 
 who are devout at this day have prayers in their houses morning 
 and evening, or fast on Fridays and Saturdays. They assembled 
 also in the evening, to celebrate their love-feasts, and again to 
 sing hymns before day-light. If these times were not chosen in 
 Order that the day might be given to worldly dutieSj pray let any 
 divine state what they were selected for ? 
 
 33. It cannot be said that they assembled at those times to 
 
 expressly abolished, this is excepted by name. And yfet Christians of every 
 denomination eat blood and animals strangled every day. 
 
 What does all this prove 3 It proves that, generally, reason has nothing 
 to do with religion , and that men are of that religion which their priest 
 and their nurse happen accidentally to profess. This observation will 
 offend many persons ; but it is, notwithstanding, perfectly true. 
 
44 HOE^ SABBATICja. 
 
 avoid persecution J for they must then all have been in the state 
 of 'lapsed;' that is, of those who have denied their Saviour, or 
 refused the honours of martyrdom, and were therefore excommu- 
 nicated. It is well known that a great feud arose in the church, 
 respecting the re-admission into it of those who had withdrawn 
 from persecution ; some refusing to admit them on any terms ; 
 and others being willing to receive them again after severe 
 penance.* So far from attempting to avoid the honours of 
 martyrdom, by secreting themselves, it is well known that these 
 honours were sought for by the Christians with eagerness. — Vide 
 Pliny's letters to Trajan.f It has been said that they fled to the 
 catacombs to conceal the rites of their religion, and to avoid 
 persecution. This surely was a most dangerous expedient; for 
 as there was oidy one road into them, by closing it, their 
 enemies might have destroyed them with the greatest facility. 
 
 34. The truth of the matter was this — they frequented the 
 catacombs to celebrate there the services to the dead ; as they 
 were afterwards celebrated in the crypts under the choirs of our 
 ancient cathedrals : for which purpose these crypts were beauti- 
 fully ornamented, as may still be seen in the cathedral at Canter- 
 bury. The council of Elvira, by one of its canons, forbade the 
 use of candles in the catacombs, in the celebration of the services 
 for the dead; for this wise reason, 'That they might not disturb 
 the souls of the deceased.' 
 
 35. The assembling in the evening aid early in the morning, 
 was evidently done to leave to slaves, servants, tradesman, and 
 all others, the means of pursuing their usual avocations during 
 the remainder of the day. 
 
 36. If it be clearly shewn, by quotations and fair argument, 
 that the Sabbath was abohshed by the New Tastament, it is not 
 of much consequence what the persons called the Pathers of the 
 
 [• Several treatises have been preserved on this subject, hearing such 
 titles as these: De fuga in fersequutione, De lapsis &c.] 
 
 [t This letter 's well known to scholars ; but to the unlearned reader 
 
Part the Second. 45 
 
 church say upon the subject; or what was their practise: we 
 have as much right to judge for ourselves as they had. But it 
 may be said, that they may have adopted a practise from the 
 apostles, as they lived so near them. Then we will inquire what 
 were their practice and opinions. 
 
 87. The works of the apostolic fathers, the apostolical consti- 
 tutions, and indeed all the works of the ancient fathers of the 
 church before Justin Martyr, are allowed, by the first divines and 
 bishops of the present day, to be forgeries ; therefore, though 
 their works contain passages favourable to the argument, they 
 will not be used. 
 
 38. It cannot be denied, that Justin Martyr must have known 
 perfectly well, what was the doctrine of the early Christians upon 
 this subject. He is the very first of the Christian fathers of 
 whom we have any entire works, the genuineness of which is not 
 disputed. In his dialogue with Trypho the Jew, he says. 
 
 The new law will have you keep a perpetual Sabbath ; and you, when 
 you have passed one day in idleness, think you are religious, not knowing 
 why that was commanded you. The Lord our God is not pleased with 
 such things as these. If any among you is guilty of peijury 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. 
 
 Again : — 
 
 Do you see 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 observation of the Sabbaths and festivals and 
 
 the following extract may be of interest : 
 
 " I asked them [the accusedJ if they were Christians , they confessed it , 
 upon which I asked them a second time, and a third time, threatening 
 them with punishment ; if they persisted, I ordered them to be led to 
 execution : for 1 had no doubt, whatever the subject might be which they 
 were called on to confess, that at all events obstinacy and inflexible stub- 
 bornness ought to be punished. " 
 
46 HoRiE -SabbatiCjE. 
 
 oblations before Moses, nekh^ now likewise is there any need of iheW- 
 after Jesus Christ, &c. Tell me, wliy tiid not God teach those to perform 
 such things, who precsded Moses and Abraham, just men of great renown, 
 and who "were well-pleasing to him, though they neither were circum- 
 cisred nor oliserved Sahbartis ? 
 
 Again : — • 
 
 As therefore circumcision began from Abraham, and the S&bbath, sacri- 
 fices, and oblations from Moses, which it has been shewn were ordained 
 on account of your nation's hardness of lieart, so according to the council 
 of the fethBts, they were to end in Jesus Christ the SoU of God. 
 
 39. Similar passages might be selected fSrom Irenseus and Ter- 
 tullian, intended to prove that the Sabbath was a special ordinance 
 confined to the Je\»'s, as a sign of a covenant betwixt God 
 and them. 
 
 40. That the Christians assembled on the Sunday in the time 
 of Justin Martyr, one hundred -and fifty years after the birth of 
 Jesus, for the purpose of divine worship, cannot be denied, if it 
 were desired so to do, as the following curious passage proves. 
 But it was not compulsory, nor esteemed a sin to neglect it, or do 
 any ordinary business on that day. 
 
 41. The following is a copy of Section 89 of Justin's Apology : 
 
 Upon Sunday we all assemble, that being the first day in which God 
 set himself to work upon the dark void, in order to make the world, and 
 in which Jesus Christ our Saviour rose again from the dead : for the day 
 before Saturday he was crucified ; and the day after, which is Sunday, he 
 appeared to his apostles and disciples, and taught them what I have now 
 proposed to your consideration. 
 
 42. It is a curious circumstance that the Christians, according 
 to Justin, did not keep the Sunday, because God had ended his 
 Work, but because he had begun it, on that day. 
 
 43. In the passage here cited, Justin is giving the reasons why 
 the Christians observed the Sunday. He was one of the most 
 celebrated of the early Christian martyrs. We are told that he 
 was a heathen philosopher, converted to Christianity. This 
 
Pakt the Segondt. 47 
 
 passage is from a well-knowa apology, written in order to convert 
 the emperor Antoninus Pius. It is not possible to believe, that if 
 thB observance of .Supday had been of divine or apostolical appoint- 
 ment, he would not here have stated it. In other parts of his 
 works he quotes the authority of the apostles for the doctrines 
 which he teaches. If it had been considered by the Christians 
 in his day as a divine ordinance, in lieu of the old Sabbath, we 
 should here most certainly have been informed of it. It was 
 evidently a municipal or fiscal regulation, a part of their 
 discipline established by themselves, and nothing more; and 
 his authority, the best and earliest in the Christian church, 
 decides the question beyond dispute. 
 
 44. The earliest of the Christians, who kept the Sunday, 
 always kept it as a festival with joy and gladness, to celebrate the 
 glorious resurrection of their Saviour, TertuUian declares it 
 unlawful to fast on a Sunday, or to worship on the knees * on that 
 day. The sixty-sixth of the apostolical canons declares, that if 
 an ecclesiastic should fast on a Sunday, he should be deposed ; 
 and if a layman should do it, he should be excommunicated. 
 Mr Whiston thought with the Catholics, that these canons were 
 not forgeries ; but whether forgeries or not, they shew all they 
 are quoted for ; namely, the opinion of Christians in a very early 
 day. St. Augustin t condemns fasting on a Sunday, for the 
 reason given above ; namely, because it was a day of jov and 
 gladness. — Ep, 86, ad Casulan. 
 
 45, It may be doubtful what authority (he Protestants of this 
 day may choose to allow to the canons of the Council of Nice ; 
 but as thfjy a^opt the Nicene Creed, they will not deny that they 
 are entitled to some respect in deciding, what was the general 
 opinion of the Church, in their day, in such cases as this opinion 
 
 • Die dominica jejunare nefas ducimus, vel de geniculis adorare. Tei-- 
 tul. De Cor. cap. iii. 
 t Called by Dr Lardner, the glory of Africa. 
 
48 HoK^ SabbaticjI!. 
 
 shall be clearly stated by them. The following is an extract from 
 the 16th canon, Cap. xvi, de Adoratione seu Genuflexione : 
 
 In Sanctis dominicis diebus sacrisque aliis • solennitatibus nuUse fiant 
 genuflexiones, quia tola Sancta Ecclesia in hisce Isetatuv, et exultat diebus, 
 genuflexiones autem afflictionis, tristitiaB, timoris et moeroris tessara snnt 
 et signum, ideo omittendse sunt diebus festis, ac maxime die resun-ec- 
 tionis Domini nostri Jesu Christi a mortuis. Hoc autem caput sine anathe- 
 mate tst. Hist. Philip. Labbei Cone. Nic. ad Can. 16, A. D. 325, Pap. 
 Silvester, 1. 
 
 [The English translation of which is as follows : 
 
 On the holy Lord's days and other sacred solemnities let no bendings , 
 of the knees be made, because 'all the holy church rejoices and exults on 
 those days, whereas bendings of the knees are tokens and signs of afflic- 
 tion, sadness, fear and sorrow ; therefore they are to be omitted on holi- 
 days, and especially on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ's resurrection 
 from the dead. But this head has no anathema annexed to it.] 
 
 46. In the Sacrosancta Conciha Philip. Labbei et Gabr. Cos- 
 sartii, Tom. IIj p. 385, the Sabbatarians are placed the first 
 amongst seventy-seven named sects or heresies. It is said, 
 
 Rerum obliti Brant isli Dei vocem per Isaiam prophetam ita contestan- 
 tem : Odio habuit anima mea Sabbata vestra, et neomenias vestoas, et 
 facta sunt mihi gravia. 
 
 [In 3ngUsh : 
 They had forgotten the voice of God testifying thus by Isaiah the pro- 
 phet, " My soul hath hated your sabbaths, and your moons, and they 
 have become burdensome to me."] 
 
 47. The Manicheans and Marcionites, sects of heretics to whom 
 the modem Puritans or Evangelical Christians probably would 
 not like to be compared, kept the Sunday as a day of humiliation. 
 This gave great scandal to the orthodox of that day, and to most, 
 if not all, other heretics. Pope Leo the First, in his fifteenth 
 Epistle to Turibius, says, 
 
 The Manicheans have been convicted in the examination which we 
 have made, of passing the Sunday, which is consecrated to the resurrec- 
 tion of our Lord, in mortification and fasting. 
 
Part the Second. 49 
 
 48. By a decree of the Council of Gangres in Paphlagouia, 
 about the year 35 7, all those are anathematised who, from devo- 
 tion and mortification,* pass the Sunday in fasting. — See Pagi, 
 Grit. Bar. An. 357 and 360. Though Protestants may despise 
 the authority of these ancient Popes and Councils, yet they can- 
 not deny, that they prove what were the early opinions of the 
 Church, which is all they are quoted for. 
 
 49. God forbid that the characters of Constantine and Euse- 
 bius should be held up as examples worthy of imitation ; but yet 
 it cannot be denied that the edict of the former, by which the 
 observation of Sunday as a day of rest was first ordained by law, 
 and made imperative on Christians, bespeaks in every part of it 
 sound discretion. His edict says, 
 
 Let all judges and towns-people, and the occupations of all trddes, test 
 on the venerable day of the sun. But let those who are situated in the 
 country, 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, 
 or planting vines, lest the critical moment being let slip, men should lose 
 the commodities granted them by the providence of Heaven, f 
 
 50. When Constantine was passing this law, withEusebius and 
 the clergy of his newly- established religion to assist and advise 
 him, can it be believed, that he would not have stated, that it 
 was done in obedience to the command of God, as handed down 
 by tradition, or by writing, if such it had been considered ? The 
 contrary conuot be believed, whether he be considered as a 
 hypocrite or a devotee. 
 
 51. Though Dr Paley considers the Sabbath to be abolished, 
 he thinks that 
 
 * Concil. Gang. Canon xviii. ■dta vofii^oftivTjv dcTKrjcriv. 
 
 t Omnes judices urbanseque plebes et cunctarum artium officia 
 venerabili die solis quiescant. Riiri tamen positi agrorum culturae libere 
 licenterque inserviant, quoniam frequenter evenit, ut non aptius alio die 
 fruraenta sulcis aut vineae scrobibus mandentur, ne occasione momenti 
 pereat commoditas coelesti provisione concessa. Dat. Nonis Mart. Crispo 
 11, et Constantino 11, Conss. Corp. Jur. Civ. Codicis, lib. iii, til. 12. 
 
 7 
 
50 HoRjE SiBBATlCiE. 
 
 the ASSEMBLING upon the first day qf the week for the purpose di'fWfelic 
 worship and religious instruction, is a law of Christianity of divine 
 appointment : 
 
 but he goes on to qualify this by adding^ 
 
 The resting on that day from our employments, longer than we are 
 detained from them by attendance upon these assemblies, is to Christians 
 an ordinance of human institution. 
 
 52, Now the question, whether the assehibling for public 
 ttcwshiin on the Sunday differently from any other day, be of 
 human or divine appointment, has nothing to do with the 
 appointment of divine worsJiip genemlly, but only to its being 
 iixed to that particular time. His inference is merely dfawii 
 from the apparent assembhng of tlie Apostles and disciples on 
 the first day of the week, as described in the three places quoted 
 in the first Part; whence he infers that there must have been 
 some appointment by divine authority unknown to us. This it 
 has been shewn that not one of the texts will warrant. Granting,for 
 the sake of argument, that they were assembled all the three times 
 alluded to by previous appointment, and not by accident, and 
 tl;at this was fixed to the first day of the week, the fair inference 
 is, that the fixing of this day was not of divine, but of human 
 invention only : for it cannot be believed, that an ordinance of 
 such great importance would not have been stated to be of divine 
 authority, if it had been so considered. It is quite absurd to 
 suppose afterward, when great and even bloody feuds were taking 
 place, respecting the observance of the Sabbath on the seventh 
 day, that not one of the Fathers or parties should have stated, 
 that the Apostles had established the observance of the Sunday 
 instead of it. Nothing could have been more favourable to the 
 anti-sabbatarians ; and in no other way can their silence be 
 accounted for, than by the supposition, that they did not allege 
 this, because the falsity of their allegation would have been 
 notorious. If the case had been doubtful even, they would have 
 availed themselves of it, as far as was in their power. 
 
 53. Some persons have imagined, that the day of the Sun, 
 dies Dominica, the first day of the week, the day peculiarly 
 
Part the Second. 51 
 
 dedicated to the Sun by the heathens, was called the Lord's-day, 
 out of honour to Jesus Christ. And Dr Priestley had this idea : 
 he says, that 
 
 before the death of John, it had obtained the epithet of the 
 Lord's-day. "As John did nothing more than use the epithet Kvpia/crj, 
 to distinguish the day he alluded to, and wrote for the use of Christians 
 in general, of that and all succeeding ages, it is evident, that he knew 
 they wanted no other mark to discover what day he meant, and that, 
 therefore, it was a name universally given to the first day at that time by 
 Christians. 
 
 54. No doubt he knew that the Christians would understand 
 him, and the Doctor might have added, the heathens also. Por 
 it was known by this name before Jesus was born, in honour of 
 the Sun, who was always called Dominus Sol, and the day, dies 
 Dominica. — See Dupuis sur tons les Cultes, Vol. Ill, p. 41, ed. 
 4to. The Persians called their God Mithra always the Lord 
 Mithra ; but it is well known, that Mithra was nothing but the 
 Sun. Dr Paley has fallen into the same mistake with Dr 
 Priestley. 
 
 55. The Syrians gave to the Sun the epithet of Adonis, or 
 Lord.* Aden is yet the word for Lord in the Welsh Celtic lan- 
 guage. Porphyry, in a prayer whicli he addresses to the Sun, 
 calls him Dominus Sol. And in the consecration of the seven 
 days of the week to the different planets, the day of the Sun is 
 called the day of the Lord Sol, or dies Dominica; when the 
 others are called only by their names, as dies Martis, &c. — See 
 Porphyry, de Abstinentia, 1, 4; Dupnis, Vol. Ill, pp. 41 — 55, 
 ed. 4to. Every one of the ancient nations gave the Sun the 
 epithet of Lord or Master, or some title equivalent to it, as Kupio; 
 in Greek, Dominus in Latin. As the Sun was called Dominus, 
 the moon or Isis was called Domina. On the side of a Church 
 
 [* The Hebrew word Adonai, one of the names given to the Supreme 
 being, was probably derived from the Syrian Adotiis. See Dupuis, vol 
 III, and Dr Giles's Hebrew Records, page 28.] _ ' 
 
52 HorjE Sabbatic^. 
 
 in Bologna, formerly a temple, the author observed, A. D. 1 825, 
 the following inscription, Dorainse Isidi Victrici. 
 
 56. The multiplication, by the laws of Society, of artificial 
 offences, which are in themselves no crimes, such as those created 
 by the excise laws, and the prohibition of innocent amusements 
 on the Sunday, have a very strong tendency to corrupt the^ pub- 
 lic morals. 
 
 57. To convert an act pleas arable and agreeable to the youth- 
 ful mind, and innocent in its own nature, such as a game at 
 cricket, on a Sunday evening, into a crime, is to treat the Lord's- 
 prayer with contempt. It is to, lead into temptation thejuncor- 
 rupted ; who, by the nature of their youth, are the most open to 
 it. Another objection arises, from the circumstance that the 
 labouring orders of mankind, who are obliged to work all the sis 
 days of the week to earn their subsistence, are consequently much 
 more exposed to temptation than the higher orders, to whom 
 every day is a Sabbath or day of rest; and who increase the temp- 
 tation to the others to break it, by breaking it with impunity 
 themselves whenever they think proper. 
 
 58. The temptation is also much greater to the labourer, who 
 works all the other six days, than to the rich man, to whom they 
 are all Sabbaths or days of rest. The rich man, who has never 
 worked, can scarcely form an idea of the pleasure of the Sabbath 
 to the poor labourer. 
 
 59. In sermons, and in books of different kinds, put into the 
 hands of young and ignorant persons. Sabbath-breaking is con- 
 stantly held up as a most heinous and terrible sin : and when 
 persons thus taught to consider it as a sin of magnitude, equal to 
 the commission of real crimes, are once tempted to a commission 
 of the offence, they become hardened. An effect is produced 
 upon their minds, very different from what it would be if they 
 were merely told that Sabbath-breaking was wrong, because it 
 was a breach of a municipal regulation, of little consequence: 
 and that if they persisted in it, they should be made to pay the 
 penalty of the law, five tihiUings. 
 
Part the Second. 53 
 
 60. It is tlie very acm^ of impolicy, and has the strongest ten- 
 dency to corrupt the morals of a people, to teach them that 
 trifling offences, which from any peculiar circumstances they are 
 constantly exposed to daily and almost insuperable temptation to 
 commit, are of a heinous nature. The mind, by repeatedly com- 
 mitting a minor offence, coloured to it as an atrocious act, 
 becomes hardened and prepared by a species of apprenticeship for 
 the commission of the worst crimes. Hence it is we constantly 
 find culprits at the gallows charging the sin of Sabbath-breaking, 
 as they call it, with the origin of their abandoned course of life ; 
 and there can be no doubt that they are correct in so doing. — 
 By considering the Sabbath or day of rest in the point of view in 
 which it has been placed, merely as a municipal regulation, it is 
 evident that the occasional breach of it will not be attended with 
 the same pernicious consequences as attend the breach of it when 
 considered as a divine ordinance. The persons who sincerely 
 appropriate the whole day to the observance of religious duties, 
 no doubt will be more pious than those who appropriate only 
 part of it : as those are more pious who pray morning and 
 night, than those who only pray once a day. But the 
 minds of those who, either by business or pleasure, are 
 induced to neglect it, will not be hardened in vice : and a person 
 of good common sense will know, that if he perform the duties of 
 prayer and thanksgiving on some other day, when he has been 
 induced to neglect them on the day fixed by the law of the land, 
 the offence, further than merely the breach of a trifhng munici- 
 pal regulation, valued at five shillings, will be in a great measure 
 atoned for. 
 
 61. If the Sunday be considered as a divinely appointed substi- 
 tute for the Jewish Sabbath, the consequence follows, that it 
 must, or at least ought, if consistency be attended to, to be kept 
 in every respect as tiie Jewish Sabbath was ordained lo be kept. 
 In the multifarious and complicated concerns of a great commer- 
 cial nation, it is not possible to keep it as strictly as ordained by 
 the letter of the old law. Hence it must be violated every day. 
 
54. IIOUM SABBATICyE. 
 
 bath by governments and individuals. In consequence of cjn- 
 sidering this institution of divine appointment, many persons of 
 the best dispositions are placed almost daily in situations the most 
 painful. The distressing nature of these situations evidenilv 
 proceeds from the mistaken idea that it is of divine, and not of 
 human appointment. If it be the former, it evidently admits of 
 no modification : but if it be only the latter, it as evidently may 
 be varied, or even dispensed with, as circumstances require. 
 Being, ordained' to be kept by the magistrate, it is wrong not to' 
 keep it ; but the offence in the former case is far greater than in 
 the latter. 
 
 62. In the neighbourhood of the author, an honest> respectable, 
 indtistrious man lived at' an inn as hostler, and after- some time 
 his master obtained a share in a mail coach, and he had the 
 horses to prepare and take care of. It is evident that this man 
 must break the Sabbath every Sunday, or abandon the situation 
 by which he maintained his family in comfort ; a situation for 
 which he was much better qualified than for any others He 
 applied to the author for advice, having read his Bible, and wish- 
 ing to do his duty, but not wishing to ruin himself; and send 
 his wife and children to the parish. He was recommended to go 
 to his parish priest. "What passed is unknown to the author,. 
 except that he returned with a perfect contempt for the wretched 
 sophistry of his ghostly adviser, who happened to be one of the 
 ^Evangelical Christians, as they call themselves. He was a man 
 of strong common sense ; it was not likely that he should do 
 otherwise. 
 
 63. Very good men amongst both the Trench and English 
 have wished the observance of the Sunday to be abolished. But 
 surely they have reasoned very incorrectly. . Some have said that 
 it is unwise to Jose one seventh part of the labour of the indus- 
 trious classes of mankirad, and that on; this account it would cort- 
 duce greatly to the riches ofia state to abolish it. This is the 
 argument of the West^India planter, aud no doubt is true. It is 
 the reason, why postmasters never wish to have their hordes stand 
 
Part the Second. 55 
 
 still in the stable ; and no doubt it is true : but it requires no 
 comment. 
 
 64. Others have said, it is a great hardship to deprive a poor 
 man of the produce of the seventh part of his voluntary labour^ 
 tor the support of his family. This is no doubt true also, if the 
 argument be applied to one family only ; but if it be applied to a 
 whole nation, nothing can be more untrue. And nothing is 
 more easy than to shew, that if in a whole nation the observance 
 of Sunday were to be abolished, though the rich would be greatly 
 benefited, no poor man would be bettered in point of pecuniary 
 concerns to the amount of a single farthing, and in many respects 
 the comforts and enjoyment of the poor would be very greatly 
 abridged.* Some persons have maintained that a day of rest is a 
 day of idleness and dissipation, alike destructive to the purses 
 and the morals of the industrious part of the community. This 
 is to reason against the use, from the abuse of a thing. It only 
 shews the necessity of proper regulations. A person may as well 
 argue against the cultivation of vines or barley, because people 
 get drunk. 
 
 65. As a human ordinance, nothing can be more wise than the 
 observance of a periodical day of devotion, rest, and recreation ; 
 but, as a Sabbath, in the strict sense of the Jews and modern 
 Calvinists, nothing can well be more pernicious. The practice of 
 the Eoraan Catholics seems to be not only the most consistent 
 with Scripture, but the most rational. After their devotions are 
 over, they have no scruple to join in any innocent recreation and 
 amusement. How different this is to the conduct of our modern 
 Pharisees. ! Many persons will not on any account read a news- 
 paper on a Sunday, or allow a little music in their house on that 
 day on any consideration. An instance is known to the author, 
 where a Scotch gentleman informed a young man visiting at his 
 house, that it was not usual with them to laugh on the Lord's-day, 
 
 * See Edinburgh Review, No, LXVII. p. 23. 
 
56 UouM Sabbatic J5. 
 
 and he hoped he would abstain from it All this arises from the 
 mistaken idea^ that the observance of the Lord's day is a renewal 
 of the Jewish Sabbath. 
 
 66. The author feels a pleasure in slating, that the old law of 
 England, before its late corruption by the modern Pharisees, was 
 perfectly accordant with his view of the subject. The Sunday is 
 classed amongst ihe/estivak ; not the fasts. All worh of neces- 
 sity were permitted, and only such as were not necessary were 
 forbidden; vide Act of Charles J I, c. 2, s. 7 : and by King 
 James's Book of Sports, such amusements were allowed as at 
 that time were thought necessary and innocent ; such as dancing, 
 archeiy, leaping, vaulting. May games, Whitsun ales, morria 
 dances, a species of dramatic entertainment, &c. vide Dalton, c. 
 46. It is very much to be desired that they were re-enacted, 
 that the people might be encouraged after divine service to apply 
 to cheerful amusements, instead of the ale-house, or what is as 
 bad, the petty conventicles of morose Calvinistic fanatics,* who 
 fancy they have a call to preach up what, in their hands, is 
 nothing better than a prava, immodica et exitiabilis superstitio,\ 
 to their gaping auditors, almost as ignorant as themselves, for 
 which there is no remedy but silent contempt. 
 
 67. The following injunctions were published by Queen 
 Elizabeth and Edward the sixth ; and as no doubt they speak the 
 opinions of the leading reformers of that day, they are curious, 
 and deserving of respect : 
 
 All parsons, 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, labour upon the holy and festival days, and 
 save that thing which God hath sent. And if for any scrupulosity or 
 
 • Calvin, the founder of this sect, who burnt Servetus for differing in 
 opinion with him declared he believed in what he taught, quia incredibile 
 EST, BECAUSE IT IS INCREDIBLE. He was quite right; it is the only ground 
 on which much of his doctrine can be believed, because it is contrary to 
 the moral attributes of God. 
 
 t [A base, excessive, and deadly superstition.] Plinyj Tacitus, 
 Suetonius. 
 
Pabt the Second. 57 
 
 grtxdge oif conscience they shall abstahi from working bpon those days, that 
 then they shall grievously offend and displease God. 
 
 68. It is uecessary to observe that festival days, according to 
 act of parliament, include all Sundays. It is a thing very much 
 to be desired, that the generality of persons engaged in business 
 would be content with the religion of their ancestors,* at least 
 until they can produce some good reasons for making a change ; 
 leaving the task of expounding difficult texts of the Bible to 
 divines and polemics, conversant with Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. 
 
 69. A learned traveller, speaking of France, says, 
 Methodists and enthusiasts there are none ; and nothing more astonishes 
 
 a Frenchman than to describe the ascendancy of Methodism iu England, 
 the death-like gloom of an English Sunday, and the vagaries of the 
 Jumpers and other such fanatics, who disgrace the intelligence of the 
 British people. It was repeated to me fifty times in reply to -my observa- 
 tions — " though men are forbidden to work on a Sunday, they are not 
 forbidden to play ; " " and if," said a French priest to me, " you would 
 keep Sunday out of respect to our Lord's ascension, instead of keeping the 
 Sabbath, surely that ascension is a subject rather of gaiety than sadness." 
 
 79. When a Frenchman has performed the devotional exercises 
 required by his religion, he does not think there is any thing 
 wrong in doing such occasional labour or work on a Sunday, as 
 may offer itself or be required. He does not consider that he is 
 acting against the word of God ; he is only giving up part of his 
 own enjoyment, the recreation which is allowed to him : and if he 
 have a family, he tliinks he is making a meritorious sacrifice, 
 rather than otherwise. And this is perfectly consistent with the 
 idea of it, as a day of festivity ordained by the church. 
 
 71. It has been said that Jesus wept, but never laughed; but 
 
 [* Mr lliggins here forgets that in a former note he has ironically 
 spoken of the force of habit by which persons continue to practise the 
 religion which they have learnt from their nv.ises olid tliose who have 
 gone before them. The fact is that we ought always to examine the 
 truth of what concerns us so much. If there be any truth in religion, 
 how important to be religious ! but if religion is a fraud, how much 
 enjoyment do we daily give up to perpetuate a falsehood! — Mankind 
 must enquii-e, and the enquiry will be successful i magna est vkritas &c.] 
 
58 ' Hou^ SabbaticjE. 
 
 for all this, he had no objection to cheerful society, and that to a 
 pretty liberal extent, or he woldd not by a miracle, at Cana, in 
 Gahlee, have provided more wine, when the guests had already 
 taken as much as the host had thought proper to provide for them. 
 Nor would he have attended a feast on the Sabbath-day, as 
 described Luke xir. 
 
 73. The jjeople of Geneva appear to keep the Sunday more 
 correctly than any other persons known to the author. 
 During divine service all the wine-houses, shops, &c., are closed, 
 and the gates of the town opened to none but surgeons and 
 accouchers, except some very urgent case is made out to the 
 satisfaction of the magistrate. The labours of husbandry are 
 permitted in harvest, and at other times, when the magistrate 
 gives permission for them, and thinks it proper. After the day's 
 devotion is over, the evening is spent in dramatic entertainments, 
 or in visiting, dancing, playing at athletic games such as 
 football, &c. 
 
 , 7.2.; It is constantly the boast of Christians, that their religion 
 is a, religion of cheerfulness, in opposition to objectors, who have 
 charged it with being the contrary. Surely the objection must 
 be considerably strengthened by the conversion of fifty-two days 
 (one,s§venth,of the whole year) from days of festivity into days 
 of mqurning and sadness. Though the fanatic may approve this 
 conversion, the philosophic Christian, the real philanthropist, 
 must view it with sorrow and regret. 
 
 74. Thus, when the day is considered as it ought to be, merely 
 as a human ordinance, it can be regulated without difficulty, by 
 the governors of states, as is most suitable to times and circum- 
 stances. But if it be considered as a divine command, it is 
 evidently out of their reach or controul. However pernicious an 
 effect may arise, they have no means to obviate it, without what 
 ought never to be seen — the government intentionally violating 
 the laws which it tells its people are sacred, and cannot be violated 
 without the commission of a great sin — the governers despatching 
 
Part the Second. 59 
 
 mail coaches in all directions, and fining poor men for being 
 shaved before they go to church on a Sunday morning* 
 
 75. It will now probably be demanded, whether a wish is 
 entertained to abolish the observance of the Sunday or not : to 
 which the reply is, Certainly not. The Jewish Sabbath was 
 abolished by Jesus ; and if it were in the power of the author, it 
 should not be restored by him. But the question is not about 
 the seventh day of the week, but about the Sunday, the first ; 
 and concerning the latter, the question is, not whether it is to be 
 abolished, but whether it is to be kept, subject to the regulation 
 of the government, as a fast or a feast — whether it is to be made 
 for man, or man is to be made for it, — whether, with the modern 
 Pharisees, it is to be kept like Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, 
 or with Bishop Cranmer, Edward YI, Elizabeth, and all our 
 early reformers, it is to be kept like Easter Sunday and 
 Christmas-day j and it may be added also, with all the Catholic 
 and Greek Christians, and many of the followers of Luther and 
 Calvin, at Geneva, and several parts of Germany, beyond all 
 comparison much the greater part of the -Christian world. 
 
 76. If it were observed to our little, though increasing junto 
 of Puritans, that it is incumbent upon them to pay some attention 
 to the great majority of the Christian world, who entertain 
 an opinion on this subject different from them, and that they 
 ought not to be too confident in their own judgement, but to 
 recoUect that it does not become them in fact, though perhaps 
 not in name, to assume to themselves that infallibility which they 
 deny to the united church of Christ with the Pope at its head . 
 they would probably reply, that they have a nglit ^to judge for 
 
 * Strain not your scythe, suppressors of our vice, 
 Reforming saints ! too delicately nice ! 
 By whose decrees, our sinful souls to- save. 
 No Sunday tankards foam, no barbers shave ; 
 And beer undrawn and beards unmown display 
 Your holy reverence for the Sabbath-day. 
 
 Byron, English Bakds and Scotch Reviewers. 
 
QO; HoK^ Sabbatic J. 
 
 themselves, that they will not be controlled by Antichrist, or the 
 scarlet whore of Babylon, "With persons who can make this 
 answer, the author declines all discussion j he writes not for 
 them, but for persons who, haying understandings, make use 
 of l^eBi : and to these persons he observes, that he does not wish 
 their opinions to be controlled by any authority; but he begs 
 them to recollect the beautiful story of the chameleon — ^that 
 others can see as well as themselves ; and that when a great 
 majority of the Christian world is against them, it is possible tjiat 
 they may be in error ; and that therefore it is incumbent upon 
 them to free their minds from passion or prejudice as much as 
 possible, in the consideration of this very important subject j that 
 on the decision respecting it depends the question, whether the 
 Christian religion is to be a system of cheerfulness, of happiness, 
 and of joy, or of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. 
 
 77. It is unnecessary to add anything more upon this subject. 
 It has been shewn, that the intention of the writer of the first 
 chapter of Genesis, and of the remainder of the Pentateuch was, 
 to teach that the institutien of the Sabbath was expressly limited 
 to the cliildren of Israel ; and that it was a sign of the covenant 
 betwixt them and God; and that the sign and covenant went 
 together. It hag been shewn, that it was abolished , by Jesus, 
 when he did not enumerate the Sabbath amongst the command- 
 ments which he ordered to be retained, and by lus, conduct in 
 breaking it on various occasions.. It has been shewn, that it was 
 abolished at the first council of the Church, held by the Apostles 
 at Jerusalem ; and that St Paul has, in the clearest terms, and 
 repeatedljj, expressed his disapprobatien, not only of Sabbaths, 
 but of the compulsory keeping of set days as an ordinance of 
 rejligion. Hot a single passage can be produced from the Gospels 
 or Epistles in approbation of the continuation of the Sabbath, or 
 of any day in its place. Nor can it be shewn, that the early 
 Christians considered the observance of Sunday as the renewal of 
 the Jewish Sabbath, or iu any sense as an institution of divine 
 appointment ; and therefore, from a careful consideration of the 
 
Part the Second. 61 
 
 whole argument, and of all the circumstances relating to it — its 
 antiquity, its utiUty when not abused, and the many comforts 
 which it is calculated to produce to the poor and working classes 
 of mankind — it may be concluded, that the observance of 
 Sunday is a wise and benevolent human, but not divine ordinance ; 
 a festival, which it is on every account proper and expedient to 
 support, in such due bounds as wiU. make it most conducive 
 to the welfare of society ; that with Christians it ought not to be 
 a day of penance and humiliation, but of happiness, joy, and 
 thanksgiving, as it was established by Edward VI at the 
 Eeformation ; a festival, to celebrate the glorious resurrection of 
 their Saviour to life and immortality. 
 
 When thou prayest, enter into thy closet: and when 
 
 THOTJ hast shut THY DOOR, PRAY TO THY FATHER WHICH IS 
 IN secret; AND THY FATHfJR, WHICH SEETH IN SECRET, SHALL 
 REWARD THEE OPENLY, 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Paet \, paragraph 1. Mr Hughes, p. 6, seems to object lo the 
 word Sabbath as used by the author. It is correctly a Hebrew word 
 adopted into our language, meaning rest. In this sense it is used 
 by Jews, Christians, and Mohamedans. There is the Jewish 
 Sabbath or rest-day on Saturday, the Mohamedan on Friday, and 
 the Christian on Sunday. In this sense it is used by the author, 
 and it is at least as correct as to adopt the heathen custom of 
 calling it Lord, after the Sun ; although the early fathers saw no 
 harm, as there really was no harm, in so applying to it this Jewish- 
 heathen name — a name which was strictly heathen in its origin, 
 and only adopted by the Jews, (from whom the Cliristians took 
 it, as is hereafter noticed,) to insure themselves from sin in writ- 
 ing the name of Jehovah, contrary to the spirit of the third com- 
 mandment, Thou shalt not tahe the name of Jehovah thy God 
 in vain. 
 
 Pt I, par. 31. Offence has been taken at the word reaped 
 being used in par. 17. Reaping or plucking, it was identically 
 the same breach of the law, and the same in the eye of the law, 
 which the word reap was intended to mark. The offence was 
 
64 Appendix. 
 
 not stealing, but doing any kind of unnecessary bodily labour. 
 Offence has also been taken at the word travellw^. But the text 
 fairly warrants the expression, and it is justified also by the 
 observation at the end of par. 31. Offence has also been taken 
 at the word premetUtated as applied to Jesus. The author still 
 remains of opinion that if the gospels are to be believed, Jesus 
 never acted thoughtlessly ; but always with premeditation and 
 wisdom, and that he did seek for and provide occasions to deliver 
 his doctrines ; and for this purpose he frequented the synagogues 
 on Sabbath-days, and all days, and every where else where the 
 Jews were assembled together ; as Paul did afterward, to reason 
 with them and teach his new doctrines. It is the opinion of some 
 very eminent men that this decree (Acts xv. 22 — 29) was in a 
 particular manner levelled at the Sabbath. Augustine de 
 Haeres, says, 
 
 Non solum carne cifcumcidi sed etiam alia hujusmodi legis praecepta 
 servari : • 
 
 and Calvin says. 
 
 Sola quidem circumcisio hie nominatiir, sed ex contejttu patet eos de 
 tota lege movisse coiitroversiam.f 
 
 Hence it is evident, that Calvin thought that Sabbaths, &c., 
 went along with circumcision; in fact, tota lex. 
 
 In order that a law should be what is meant by the term moral 
 law, it is necessary that it should be discoverable by the hght of 
 reason ; that it should be invariable in its nature, always binding, 
 and universally acknowledged by all nations, and that there 
 should not be any excuse for its non observance. It is good 
 without any positive precept or command of God, or of our supe- 
 riors. Now the keeping of a Sabbath on the seventh day or the 
 
 [* Not only to be circumcised, but also to keep other such precepts of 
 the Law.] 
 
 f Morer, Dial. II, p. 66. [Circumcision alone is here named, but it 
 appears from tha context that they raised a controversy about the whole of 
 the Law &c.] 
 
Appendix. 65 
 
 first day ; once in seven days, or twice in seven days ; could never 
 be discovered by the light of reason. It is not invariable; 
 but on the contrary is, in its very essence, variable ; because it is 
 impossible to be kept on the same day by persons travelling to 
 and residing in different places of the globe. Suppose a father 
 remain stationary, and send out his sons to settle in distant 
 countries, east and west of him : from astronomical causes it is 
 notorious, that they will necessarily all come to keep the Sabbath 
 on different days. These reasons, which render a Jewish Sabbath 
 tolerable or expedient for the Israelites confined to Judea, render 
 it intolerable and inexpedient for an universal rehgion. It is not 
 good as fixed to any day without a positive precept, for without a 
 positive precept it could never have bieen known. 'Thou shalt 
 not steal,' is an example of a moral law, and contains all the con- 
 ditions required. A Sabbatical institution embraces none of them. 
 It is a positive law ; depends upon a command. They must have 
 a strange confusion of ideas who cannot see the difference between 
 z. positive and a moral law.* 
 
 The Kev. Mr Grascomb justly observes. 
 
 What is natural and moral is of eternal obligation, and admits of no 
 change or alteration, f 
 
 But the Sabbath is directly the reverse of this. 
 
 It has been observed by Mr Heylin, that the Sabbath is only fit 
 for a people confined to one place, fle says. 
 
 In respect of the diversity of the meridians, and the unequal rising and 
 setting of the sun, every day varies in some places a quarter, in some half, 
 
 • Jus naturale est illud quod ex ipsius naturje institutione provenit, et 
 hoc est omnibus commune. Alphon. de Castro de Leg. — The Rabbins 
 call these laws prEEcepta iutellectiva et manifertissima apud omnes gentes. 
 Tlavraypv ttjv avrrjv ej^et Svvafiiv. Arist. Ethic. It is KOivof 
 v6flo<; Kol d/cW'ijTO?. Jus naturale est commune omnium nationum. 
 Isidore ct Gratian. Vide Pet. Gelat. de .-Vrcan. , Cath. Ver. lib. ii. cap. 
 10; Lact. de Ver. Sap. lib. iv. cap. 13 ; Chrysost. ad Pop. Antioch. ; Morer, 
 Dial. II. p. 91. 
 
 t Script. Hist. Sabb , p. 64. 
 
 9 
 
'66 A.PPENDIX. 
 
 in others a whole day, therefore the Jewish Sabbath cannot be precisely 
 kept in the same instant of time, every where in the world, t 
 
 lie has at great length shewn, that, after the dispersion, it was 
 not possible for all the descendants of Noah to keep the Jewish 
 Sabbath, i. e. the seventh day, on the same day. 
 
 The text says. 
 
 From even to even shall you celebrate your Sabbath. 
 
 How are persons to act where there is no even, near the Poles ? 
 Here is a law of morality suitable to the Equator, and not to the 
 Poles. An order to the whole world to observe the seventh day, 
 from the day of the resting of God, as a Sabbath, is in its nature 
 absolutely impossible to be obeyed. This pretty well overthrows 
 Mr Hughes's doctrine that the seventh day was, immediately after 
 the creation, set apart for all mankind, to be kept holy. There 
 seems no resource for the learned gentleman but to explain, that 
 he means one day in seven. 
 
 Pt I, Par. 41. The words no such thing are as clear and as 
 unequivocal as words can be. If St Paul and the apostles were 
 divinely inspired, it is the very acme of absurdity to suppose that 
 they would not have inserted a salvo for the Sunday or a Sabbath, 
 if they had thought there could be any doubt on the subject. 
 This view of it is confirmed, if coufirniation were required, by St 
 Paul's express disapprobation of Sabbaths upon several other 
 occasions. 
 
 Ye observe days.... I am afraid of you. Gal. iv. 10, 11. 
 
 Pt. I. Par. 44. In reply to this it is said, that the author's argu- 
 meTit is not conclusive, because the fifth commandment, ' " hon- 
 our thy father and mother," is not specified' in that place. An 
 opponent, but not Mr Hughes, says. 
 
 The hypothesis of G. H. is not borne out by his favoiirite argument 
 O how favourite ! but, O how fragile ! for in another place, in the Epistle to 
 the Ephesians,St Paul mentions the fifth commandment expressly, though 
 
 : Page 50. 
 
Apfendix. 67 
 
 he has casually omitted it here, whence it is evident that the' Apostle and 
 his Master have hoth fallen (wilfully, G. H. would have us infer) into the 
 sa nie mistakes. 
 
 G. H. begs leave to say, he has never inferred that either the 
 Apostle or his Master has fallen into mistakes, either wilfully 
 o r otlierwise. He has left it to his pious and wise opponents to 
 discover that Jesus Christ and the Apostle were liable to 
 
 MISTAKES ! 
 
 If the case of the Sabbatarians is to be made good only by im- 
 puting mistakes to Paul and Jesus Christ, it must indeed be bad. 
 
 It is said that St Paul names ^vd fifth commandment. Indeed 
 he does. Every commandment in the Decalogue, necessary for 
 the good of mankind, was re-enacted by Jesus Christ and Paul 
 over and over again, but the Sabbath is never re-enacted. The 
 author still persists, that if St Paul be authority, the whole of 
 the old Testament as a code of law is abolished or repealed. 
 
 Pt. I. Par. 55. St Panl is said to have repeatedly attended the 
 Jewish synagogues on the Sabbaths. But for what does the text 
 say he attended them ? To reason with them (Acts xvii, 2. sviii, 
 4, 19) ; that is, to attack their religion : and this is quoted in 
 support of a rite of that religion which he went to' attack. How 
 absurd ! He went into the synagogues for- the same reason that 
 he went into the schools of the heathens, to make converts. St 
 Paul says, 
 
 that he had not shunned to declare to the saints all the counsel of God. 
 And how he kept back nothing that was profitable to them, but had 
 shewed them all things, &c. 
 
 Acts XX, 27, 20. Where does Paul direct the observance of a 
 Sabbath ? No man can shew that Paul ever made known that the 
 Sunday was to be substituted in lieu of the Sabbath of Moses ; 
 therefore it is evident that the Sabbath is not profitable or the 
 counsel of God. 
 
 Pt. I. Par. 57. In consequence of a passage in this paragraph, 
 the author has been accused of a dislike to societies for the distri- 
 bution of the Bible, without Note or Comment. 
 
68 Appeneix. 
 
 Should thi§ accusation be well founded, as this heresy is held by 
 the Catholic Church, and by the Protestant Bishop Marsh, perhaps 
 the author may hope-, notwithstanding the anathemas of the saints, 
 to escape damnation for it. He will not fail to plead in his defence 
 'the declaration of a dignified member of the church of England, 
 an archdeacon, who declared in a charge to his flock, that on 
 careful examination by numerical calculation, and the returns of 
 the courts of justice which he exhibited, he found that crime and 
 Bible Societies had increased pari passu. 
 
 The author has formed his opinion, that explanation, note, or 
 comment, might be useful along with the Bible chiefly on such 
 texts as the following : Judges iii, 12 — 30, the murder of Eglon 
 by Ehud ; Judges iv, 18 — 24, the account of the murder of Sisera 
 by Jael, compared with the passage in chap, v, 24, Blessed above 
 women shall Jael be. Also, the life of David — his murder of Uriah ; 
 his delivery of the children of Saul, whom he had sworn to protect, 
 to be made a sacrifice of by the Gibeonites, compared with the 
 22d verse of the thirteenth chapter of Acts ; and many expressions 
 which describe God as revengeful, passionate, vindictive, jealous, 
 &c. ; and, above all, many passages of St Paul's, in which he 
 speakes of worJcs, meaning the rites of the old law, which for want 
 of proper explanation, note, or comment, are mistaken for works of 
 morality. Hence devotees have deduced consequences subversive 
 of all morality, to the extent even of holding that good works of 
 charity and benevolence are not grounds for the hope of salvation ; 
 but that the greater the sinner, the surer the hope. These are some 
 of the reasons which make the author dislike the circulation of the 
 Bible without note or comment. However inconvenient it may be 
 to make comments to please all parties, nothing can be more incon- 
 venient than to circulate such passages as the above-mentioned 
 without explanation. On this subject the author is, therefore, 
 quite agreed with the Eoman CathoHcs, and the Bishop of Peter- 
 borough, Dr Marsh. 
 
 As the author expected, the note upon this paragraph has 
 given great offence ; or rather it may be said it has given oppor- 
 
Appendix. G9 
 
 tunity to the hypocrites, the chi(f piiesU and Pharisees, to pre- 
 tend offence. The contents of it are perfectly true. Church-go- 
 ing has superseded morality. 
 
 Pt. 1. Par. 58. Very well; no evidence! Then with St 
 Jerom we say, non credimus quia non legimus. But more than 
 this. The want of evidence for the rite is decisive evidence 
 against it. If the rite had been necessary, Jesus Christ would 
 not have omitted to name it, — ^the rite of the greatest importance 
 in the temporal affairs of man of all rites ever established. 
 
 Pt. J. Par. 69. Acts xx, 7 : ' Upon the first day of the week.' 
 There is great doubt upon this text. Erasmus renders this, unto 
 die sabhatorum, et quodam die sabbatorum : that is, upon a cer- 
 tain sablath. In this he is snpported by Calvin, Pellican, and 
 Gualter, who all make expositions upon this text, supposing it io 
 have this meaning, and not that of the first day of the week. St 
 Augustin also supports this meaning, and he is followed by the 
 Protestant writers Strigelius, Hunuius, and Aretius. All these 
 render Ka-ra. fjulav aa^^drov, on the sabbath day ; i. e. the Satur- 
 day.* Whatever may be the meaning of the Greek, the opinion 
 of Calvin and the other divines is clear enough. 
 
 The opinion of Chrysostom upon this text is curious. He 
 says. 
 
 Their meeting at that time was not especially to receive instruction from 
 St Paul, but to eat bread with him ; and there, upon occasion given, he 
 discoursed unto them. See, (saith the Father,) how they all made bold 
 with St Paul's table, as it had been common to them all : and as it seems 
 to me, (saith he,) St Paul sitting at the table did thus converse with 
 them.f 
 
 Pt. I. Par. 72, Mr Locke paraphrases the verse. Let every 
 one of you, 8fc., put into the common treasury of the church ; and 
 in his note he says, that dfjaavpuov means common treasury. X 
 
 * Heylin, Pt II, ch. i, pp. 23—26, 28. See also Reach, p. 230. 
 
 t Heylin, Pt. II. ch. i. pp. 3, 9. \ Caleb Fleming, p. 51 
 
70 Appendix. 
 
 To E amiaus and back again must have been fifteen miles. 
 T liis travelling on the first day of the week evidently proves that 
 they had no idea of a Sabbath ; and here again, if Jesus had 
 the ught proper to change the sabbath from the seventh day, he 
 wo uld have told them so, and not have joined them in breaking 
 it, as they evidently were doing. % If the first day of the week 
 is to be a sabbath, because Jesus appeared to his disciples on the 
 first, (admitting this for the sake of argument,) then the day on 
 which he appeared to Peter and his companions (John xxi, 3 — 14) 
 fl hen fishing, and also Thursday, the day of his ascension, must 
 be sabbaths. There is no reason to believe that Jesus shewed 
 himself to the apostles niore frequently on the first day of the 
 week than on any other, being seen of them forty days, (Acts i, 8,) 
 language fairly meaning, constantly or daily, fcr forty days. 
 
 The observations of Mr Hughes on the supposed meeting of 
 the Apostles repeatedly on a first day of the week, are learned 
 and ingenious, but the question is scarcely -worth the discussion ; 
 as, supposing they did meet on that day oftener than on others, 
 which must always be very doubtful, this will actually prove 
 nothing, when taken in its utmost extent, except that they thought 
 it expedient to assemble at stated times for divine worship, as a 
 mer human institution or regulation ; and the absence of all 
 notice of it by Jesus, and the strong observations of Paul against 
 it, put this question out of doubt. It is unwarrantable to give a 
 forced meaning to texts, directly against the actions of Jesus and 
 the words of the apostles in the Acts, xxi, 25 ; (no such thing ;) 
 added to the strong disapprobation of Paul as repeatedly expressed 
 in his epistles. In several of these places Mr Hughes has 
 attempted to prove, that the author of the Horse Sabbaticse fails 
 in shewing that the apostles did not assemble on the first day of 
 the week. This is not a fair argument. The Sabbatarians assert 
 that the apostles did assemble on the first day ; the author only 
 says, they fail to prove this. They are bound to shew this, or 
 
 ■ — - — ■ ? — ' 
 
 + Heylin, ut supra, p-. 12. 
 
Appb>-dix. 7 1 
 
 their eoncliisioTi fails. He is not bound to shew they did not, ta 
 prove a negative, though he thinks he has done so. 
 
 Ft. I, Par. 73. If it be asked why the apostles assembled on 
 the day of Pentecost, which was a Sauday, it is answered, if there 
 be any truth in the ancient Fathers, or in the Acts of the apostles, 
 it must be allowed, that the early Christians kept all the Jewish 
 festivals for a very considerable tiine after the death of Jesus ; 
 and they assembled on the day of Pentecost to celebrate that 
 festival, in the same way as they celebrated all the others : 
 and, therefore, it cannot be considered any more extraordinary 
 that they should assemble on that day that on any other festival. 
 We do know that they assembled because it was a Jewish festival, 
 and, as was usual, to break bread, as the Jews always did on 
 thai occasion ; therefore, nothing can be inferred from this : it 
 proves nothing. St Chrysostom says, 
 
 What means Paul's hastening to this feast 1 It was not for the feasts, 
 hut for the multitudes — he made haste to preach the word.* 
 
 When he went into the Synagogue, he only preached to those 
 of one neighbourhood ; in preaching at tiie feast of Pentecost, he 
 preached to persons from all parts. His object was the same as 
 that which took him into the heathen temples, or into any other 
 assembly. 
 
 The Eev. Dr Heylin t says, 
 
 ' Nam I76i'T77/i;oo-Tij semper eadem est feria, quae V Sevrepa tov 
 7raa-'XfiT0<;, as Scaliger hath rightly noted. So that as often as the 
 Passover fell upon the Saturday or Sabbath, as this year it did, then Pen- 
 tecost fell on the Sunday ; but when the Passover did chance to fall upon 
 the Tuesday, the Pentecost fell that year upon the Wednesday : et sic 
 CEBteris. 
 
 Calvin has shewn that the breaking of bread named in the Acts 
 did not allude to the Sacrament. He says. 
 
 Horn. XLIII, in Act. ; Reach, p. 151 ; Hejlin, Pt. II, p. H. 
 t Hist. Sabb. ch. i. p. 2. 
 
72 APPEJJMX. 
 
 Nam quod hie fractionem panis nonnulli interpretantur sacram coenam , 
 alieiium mihi videtur a mente Lucse.f 
 
 Mr Holden says, that the computation of time by months, days, 
 and years, arises from obvious causes ; but the division of time 
 by periods of seven days has no foundation in any natural or visi- 
 ble septenary change. It therefore must have arisen from some 
 positive appointment, anterior to the dispersion of mankind. Mr 
 Hughes also makes this a point of importance. On this account, 
 though the argument is feeble enough, when opposed to all the 
 other circuujstances and the absence of all notice of it by the 
 Patriarchs, the objection will be examined more largely than in 
 itself it deserves. Great stress has been laid on the frequent use 
 of the number seven in the Old Testament; but probably not 
 more than might be laid ou the numbers twelve and seventy (gene- 
 rally meaning seventy -two, or six times twelve). The Jews as well 
 as Gentiles had many superstitious notions respecting the powers 
 of numbers. M. Dupuis has pretty well explained the origin of 
 most of these things, atid has traced them, like many other trifl- 
 ing matters, to the Egyptians and Persians. Man would first 
 learn to count _/?ye by means of pebbles or calculi, and his five 
 fingers, then in like manner ten. After some time he would ob- 
 serve that the moon revolved or returned at set times. By means 
 of these same calculi or pebbles he would ascertain, i.'e. calculate, 
 that this time was twenty-eight days. Having ascertained this, 
 or made this calculation, he would begin to examine his twenty- 
 eight pebbles. He would first divide them into two. He 
 would then divide them again, and make four parcels. After 
 this he would stop, because he would find that he could go no 
 lower. He could not divide his seven into two equal par- 
 cels. Therefore here he stopped. This of itself very naturally 
 accounts for the number seven being the lowest division of time 
 
 X [The interpretation hy which some understand here the holy supper, 
 seems to me foreign to the meaning of St Luke.] Glover's Obs. on Marsh's 
 Comp. view, p. 136. 
 
Appendix. 73 
 
 amongst nearly all nations. This would be afterwards confirmed 
 by the planets, the wandering stars,* being found to be seven in 
 namber, equal to the number of days in this little cycle, to one 
 of which planets each day was dedicated, and called by its name ; 
 it was placed in the same order from Druidical Britain to Brami- 
 nical India, long before Moses lived, as it could be satisfactorily 
 proved, if it appertained to this subject. In this deduction of 
 the origin of the week, there is nothing forced or unnatural, no- 
 thing but what arises from the nature of things. In general, 
 much dependence cannot be placed on theories of this kind ; in- 
 deed, very seldom : but in this case it is impossible to deny a 
 strong probability, and a cause perfectly commensurate to the 
 effect. The Heathens looked on the seventh day of the month as 
 holy to Apollo ; the third to Minerva ; the fourth to Mercury ; 
 the ninth to Jupiter, &c. See all the nonsense of sacred numbers 
 in Morer's Second Dialogue.t There is nothing more remarka- 
 ble in the repetition of the number seven in the Jewish books 
 than of the numbers twelve or seventy. It was the common short 
 period, as it is with us, derived from the circumstance which has 
 been pointed out. 
 
 The moment man came to a state of civilization, he would re- 
 quire a measure of time ; and it follows, from the circumstance 
 of the moon making her period in twenty eight days, and from 
 twenty-eight not being reducible by halves below seven, that that 
 number should be the lowest measure of all nations, as we know 
 that it was. It was an absolutely necessary effect, which could 
 not fail to take place, without any regard to any religion whatever, 
 as soon as man began to emerge from a state of barbarism. But 
 another effect would arise — necessarily arise — from the same cause. 
 The moment man began to make use of any fixed period for the 
 worship of God, he would fix upon the seventh day, without any 
 divine revelation. And, unfortunately, from this it happened 
 that, raising bis eyes to heaven, he counted the wandering stars. 
 
 t P. 153. 
 10 
 
74 Appenbix. 
 
 found them equal in number to the days of the week, called them 
 by the same names, and fell to worshipping them, placing the sun 
 at their^head. Throughout all the world the first day is dedi- 
 cated to the sun, and the second to the moon ; this arises natur- 
 ally enough : and no where are any traces of this hebdomadal 
 cycle to be found, except united to the solar worship. The Greek 
 authors inform us, that the Egyptians divided the twenty-eight, 
 first into'Ptwo fourteens, from the dark and light sides of the 
 moon, and called it the cycle of Osiris. 
 Mr Hughes says. 
 
 These circumstances (referring to the constant recurrence of the seven 
 days) are worthy of attention, and ought to be satisfactorily explained by 
 him' who denies the primeval institution of a Sabbath day. 
 
 Now it is shewn by the above argument respecting the seventh 
 day cycle, that it has been in some nations, and may have been 
 in all, derived from a natural cause— the natural and necessary 
 subdivision of the moon's period to its lowest divisible point : 
 and it is surely much more probable that it should have been de- 
 rived from this natural cause, than from the appointment of a 
 sabbath or a day of rest and of holiness to Adam, to whom every 
 day was equally ^a day of rest and holiness. 
 
 The fact is, that the sanctification and making holy of the day, 
 as applied to Adam, is absolute nonsense ; and, therefore, if the 
 text be construed consistently with common sense, it must be 
 proleptical, and nothing else. Adam was as perfectly holy every 
 day as it was possible for him to be at the time referred to in the 
 16th and 17 verses of the first chapter of Genesis ; and he never 
 worked at that time, or work would not, after his sin, have been 
 said to be given him as a punishment. 
 
 The Sabbatarians have placed much dependence on the follow- 
 ing text : Pray ye that your flight he not on the sahbath-day. 
 (Matt, xxiv, 20.) The Rev. Mr Grascomb * has justly observed, 
 that if a man acknowledge himself bound to any one thing by 
 
 * Script. Hist, of Sabbath, pp. 137—147. 
 
Appendix. 75 
 
 vbtue of a law, by virtae of that same law he must own himself 
 bound to all it requires. Now when Jesus desired his hearers 
 to pray that their flight might not be on the Sabbath-day, he 
 could of course only mean the Jewish Sabbath-day. If this sen- 
 tence be construed to imply a continuation of it in all its parts ; 
 it must necessarily bind Christians to aE which the Jewish Sabbath 
 requires. Of all the passages which have been produced by the 
 Sabbatarians, this is the only one on which they can rest with the 
 slightest plavMbility, and this slight plausibility, in fact, exists only 
 by our not being able clearly to shew what the text means; 
 therefore, say the Sabbatarians, though against the context, it 
 means the continuation of the Sabbath. Now it very often 
 happens that it may be shewn what a passage does not mean, 
 though it cannot be shewn what it does mean. The whole pro- 
 phecy, when taien altogether, is ftdl of difficulty. 
 
 It is impossible, upon any fair principle of reasoning, to permit 
 a passage of a prophecy, the meaning of which is not understood, 
 to be construed directly in opposition both to the actions and 
 words of Jesus and Paul upon every other occasion. Besides it 
 proves too much. If it be admitted, then the Jewish Sabbath 
 must be admitted in its utmost strictness, and on the Saturday ; 
 and this is what has led some well-meaning devotees, who hap- 
 pened to have a little regard for consistency, to maintain that it 
 was as wrong for a man to feast on a Sunday as to cut the throats 
 of his children, &c. It is the most absurd thing imaginable to 
 suppose it was ever the intention of Jesus, that a rite of such 
 immense importance as the Sabbath, the most important of any 
 that ever was in the world to mankind, should be estabhshed on 
 such a doubtful text, and by such a side-wind as this. If Jesus 
 had intended the Sabbath to continue, he would have said so : 
 and we may again safely say, with St Jerom, upon another occa- 
 sion, Non credimus quia non legimus. If it could be shewn that 
 Jesus here meant the Christian Sabbath, it might be fairly con- 
 cluded that a Christian must not flee from his house on a Sunday^ 
 even if it were on fire, and a powder magazine at the next door. 
 
76 Appendix. 
 
 St Chrysostom* is a great authority. What says he upon 
 this text ? 
 
 Behold, how he adclresseth his discourse to the Jews, and tells them of 
 the evils that should befal them : for neither were the apostles hound to 
 keep the Sabbath, nor were they there when these calamities fell upon the 
 Jewish nation. Nptin the winter,.nor on the Sabbath, and why so, saithhe? 
 Because their flight being so quick and sudden, neither the Jews would 
 dare to flee on the Sabbath,, nor would the winter but be very troublesome 
 in such distresses. 
 
 Dean Prideaux says,* that 
 
 'Tis RIDICULOUS for any to argue for a confirmation of the Sabbath 
 from these words, which Christ foretold as an inconvenience that would 
 arise from the superstition of the Jewish people. J 
 
 The mass of nonsense which has been written upon this text is 
 inconceivable. The author of this work fairly avows his igno- 
 rance of its meaning. The wish that the flight of the Christians 
 should not be on the Sabbath, is a wish that evidently alludes to 
 something exclusively Jewish. The Saturday must of necessity 
 be the day spoken qf ; for the words the Sabbath at that time 
 applied only to certain days ordained to be observed by the Jews. 
 It is neither a Sabbath, nor toue Sabbath, as it would have been, 
 had the Christian Sabbath been meant. These prophecies are 
 amongst the passages which no one understands. When any 
 person can tell why, if this alluded to the destruction of Jerusalem 
 at the time of this flight, it should be said, (Matt, xxiv, 29 — 31,) 
 that the elect should be gathered by the sound of the trumpet, 
 that the Son of Man should come with great glory in the clouds, 
 that the sun should be darkened and the stars fall from heaven, 
 for these things are all in the same prophecy, the author will 
 tell him why the flight was not to be on the Saturday. There are 
 many texts which the author confesses he cannot understand; 
 though village school-masters and sucking divines generally 
 understand every thing. 
 
 • Heylin, Pt. II. ch. i. p. 10. 
 t De Sabb. Orat. X Merer, Dial. II. p. ia6. 
 
AppiiNDix. ' '" 77 
 
 Pt. I. Par. 77. The term jealous, as used by us and applied 
 to God, is absurd. My God is not a jealous God, but a God of 
 benevolence and mercy, long-suffering and of great kindness. 
 The term had a peculiar meaning as applied to the Jews, and 
 related to idolatry, and the worship of other gods than Jehovah. 
 But it is actually ridiculous when applied to us, and this shews 
 the wisdom in the Catholic church of abandoning this cade 
 of Jewish law, and depending upon the commands of Jesus Christ. 
 Not a word of Jesus Christ can be shewn favourable to this 
 command. 
 
 Pt. I. 81. In their arithmetic the Jews made use of the 
 letters of the alphabet. The two letters i and e, which denoted 
 the number 12, denoting also the sacred word Jehovah, or the 
 root of it, were changed into Teth and Vau, which denote 9 and 
 6, and therefore come to the same thing. This we call an idle 
 sttperstition ; and so it is in us, as Jesus abolished it with the 
 remainder of the code. Bus it is surely a very bold assumption 
 on the pEurt of Christians, to tell the Jews that they are guilty of 
 an idle superstition in refusing, as they believe, to disobey an 
 actual, express command of God, — and as they consistently 
 believe, too ; for it is almost impossible not to believe, all 
 circumstances considered, that this practice of notation and 
 tradition must have descended from the earliest time, probably 
 coeval with the Pentateuch. 
 
 Although Jesus reenacted the first commandment, as described 
 in Mark xii, 28 — 33, yet it tends strongly to confirm the 
 hypothesis of his considering the Decalogue as a code of law to 
 be abolished, that, in answer to the scribe, he says, 
 
 The second commandment is, (not that found as the second in Exodus 
 but this,) Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other 
 commandment greater than these. 
 
 The method in which Jesus always treats the Decalogue 
 strongly tends to prove that he considered it as part of the 
 Levitical code, and of course, to share the same fate; leaving 
 the laws of morality, as they were known and practised most 
 correctly by Abraham, IsaaCj &c., and as inculcated by him. 
 
7S Appendix. 
 
 Pt. I. Par. 83, On this paragraph the author is asked, ' Who 
 deduces any such thing ? ' To which he answers. He who gives 
 more authority to the Decalogue than to the remainder of the old' 
 law, which was abolished. 
 
 Pt. I. Par. 86. An opponent of the author's has finished his 
 observations with the following sentence : 
 
 For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change 
 also of the law. Heh. vii, 12. 
 
 True, there is no more Jewish Sabbath ; the law is changed ; 
 the Sabbath is gone. 
 
 Pt. II. Par. 3. But supposing the Patriarchs did keep the 
 Sabbath (which they did not), all that can bo pretended to is, 
 that it was a positive precept ; and if we are to keep a positive 
 precept because it was commanded to them, we must keep all the 
 other precepts which we know were given to them — circumcision, 
 for instance, and abstinence from blood. If the observance of 
 the Sabbath be a law of nature, the others are so also, and they 
 must all be obeyed. But they are all positive precepts and not 
 moral laws.* 
 
 Pt. II. Par. 7. The author is not without support in this 
 opinion : 
 
 Yet it is a point ought to be taken for granted, that no part of the law 
 of Moses doth bind Christians under the Gospel by virtue of that delivery, 
 no, NOT THE TEN COMMANDMENTS THEMSELVES, but least of all the fourth, 
 which all confess to be in some respect ceremonial. 
 
 Sanderson Prselect. iv. N. 28, de Cas. Consc. and de Sabbato ; 
 and Zanchius, de Eedempt., who says, 
 
 As neither the judicial nor ceremonial, so neither the moral law contained 
 in the Decalogue, doth any way affect us Christians, but only so far forth 
 as it is the law of nature, which bindeth all alike, and afterwards was 
 confirmed and ratified by Christ our king. 
 
 His REASON is, because, 
 
 if the Decalogue, as given by Moses to the Jews, did concern the 
 Gsntiles, then the Gentiles had been bound by the fourth commandment 
 to observe the Sabbath in as strict a manner as the Jews : but it is mani- 
 
 * VidevZanchius, in Quart. Frsec^t. Merer, Dial. II. p. 147. 
 
Appendix. 79 
 
 fest, the Gentiles never were obliged to observe the Sabbath; and 
 therefore it follows, they neither were nor possibly could be bound to any 
 of the residue, as delivered by Moses to the Jews.* 
 
 Grotius de Ver. t says. 
 
 That if the law concerning best on the Sabbath had been given from 
 the beginning, and in such a manner as never to be abolished, certainly 
 that law would have prevailed over all other laws ; the contrary to which 
 we now find.l 
 
 Pt. II. Par. 11. Mr Hughes, p. 19, has overlooked the 
 observation concerning the definite article in Par. 10, and reasoned 
 as if the text in Exod. xvi, 23, was the rest ofiiiEi holy Sabbath. 
 The argument is decidedly against him when the text is correctly 
 translated — ^a rest of a. holy Sabbath. Mr Hughes also observes, 
 that the words how long refuse ye to keep my commandments ? ver. 
 28, seem to allude to some previous command. No doubt they 
 do ; to the command of which an account is given in a previous 
 verse, that the Israelites should not go out to gather the manna. 
 
 Pt. II. Par. 19. The construction given by the author to the 
 pronoun is confirmed by the gloss of the Rabbis, and the whole 
 that he has said respecting the sign of a covenant in Pt. II. Par. 
 16, is confirmed by E. Johaniian, by Galatinus, Procopius, 
 Gazseus, Josephus, St Cyril, and Theodoret.§ 
 
 Pt. II. Par. 26. 
 
 And raadest known unto them thy holy Sabbath, and commandest them 
 precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of thy servant Moses, 
 Nehem. ix, 14. 
 
 Here, if plain, unequivocal language is to be received as 
 evidence, Neh^miah puts the sabbath precisely on the same 
 footing as all the rest of the commandments, i. e. laws which were 
 first made known to the Israelites by Moses. No language can 
 be clearer. If he had said, that God made known to them 
 the Sabbath on Sinai, when he had made it known to them 
 before, he would have said that which was not true. 
 
 • Morer, Dial. II. p. 204. t Pt- H. lib. v. s. 13. 
 
 X Caleb Fleming. § Heylin, Hist. Pt. i. ch. iv. p. 76. 
 
80 Appendix, 
 
 Pt. II. Par. 27. But there is a clear, direct, and irrefutable 
 proof, that the Sabbath was not kept by Moses and the Israelites, 
 when it was in their power to keep it, before the raining of manna 
 in the wilderness. In Exod. xvi, 1, it is said, that they came to 
 the wilderness on the 15th day of the second month.* 
 
 Now the next morning to this it rained manna, and so continued every 
 morning till the 22d, which being the seventh day, it rained none, and 
 that day they were commanded to keep the Sabbath. Now, then, if the 
 22d day of the month were the Sabbath, therefore the 15th must be the 
 Sabbath too, for that was the seventh before it. But the text saith 
 expressly, they marched on that day a long wearisome march, which shews 
 they did not observe it, and this neglect proves it not kept before. And 
 it is worth our notice, that the day of the month is never named, unless 
 it be once, for any station but this, where the Sabbath was ordained, other- 
 wise it could not have been known, that that day was ordained for a day 
 of rest, which before was none. 
 
 Here is a clear and complete proof, that Moses did not keep 
 the Sabbath, when it was in his power, before the raining of the 
 manna. And in this is included a strong presumption, that it 
 was not kept by the Patriarchs before him. If it had been a 
 moral law or a positive law binding on all mankind, Moses would 
 not have broken it, without any necessity whatever. To the cele- 
 brated Dr Mede, the author is indebted for this most decisive 
 observation. 
 
 It has been said in opposition to Dr Mede, and in order to get 
 the better of this stubborn, unbending arithmetic, (nothing is so 
 intractible as arithmetic,) that Moses did not mean the seventh 
 day from the first descent of the manna, but the last day of the 
 week. Nothing is necessary to refute this, but to read the text 
 and context : 
 
 4. The people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I 
 may prove them whether they will walk in my law or no. 5. And it shall 
 come to pass, that on the sixth day they shall prepare that which they 
 shall bring in ; and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily. 
 
 * Vide Mede on Ezek. xx. 2C. 
 
Appendix. 81 
 
 21. And they gathovod it eveiiy m-ornino, every man according to his 
 eating; and when the sun waxed hot it melted. 22. And it came to pass 
 that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much hread, two oniers for 
 one man, and all the rulers of the congregation came and told 
 Moses.' 
 
 The various circumstances pointed out respecting the ignorance 
 of the ancient Patriarchs of the Sabbath^ and the observations 
 which have been submitted to the reader^ are sufficient to shew 
 that the Sabbath was not instituted at the creation ; but the re- 
 markable fact of its not being kept by Moses when he had it in 
 his powei'j is a decisive and unanswerable proof. It was peculiar- 
 ly incumbent upon Moses, on this clan, 'o return thanks for the 
 signal deliverance which he had just before experienced by the 
 overthrow of Pharaoh and his hosts in the Red Sea. If the Sab- 
 bath had existed, he would not only have kept it, but when he 
 was recording the beautiful hymn which he sung upon that occas- 
 ion, he would also have recorded that the Israelites then resumed 
 their obedience to that command of God. However, he did not 
 keep it, but wilfully took a long march on that day. This com- 
 pletes the answer to the learned and Eev. Mr Hughes's propositions 
 that the day was originally instituted at the creation, and that it 
 had fallen into neglect. The reader is requested to consider the 
 following authorities. 
 
 Pt. II. Par. 5. Tostatus asks, 
 
 Num Sabbatum cum a Deo sanctificatum fuerit in priniordio rerum ? 
 to which he gives this answer, 
 
 Quod Deus non dederit priEceptum illud de observalione Sabbati in 
 principio, sed per Mosen datum esse, &c.'* 
 
 Pererius, a learned Jesuit observes, that generally the fathers 
 have agreed, that God imposed no other law on Adam, which was 
 plainly positive, than that of not eating the forbidden fruit of the 
 tree of knowledge. t 
 
 * Heylin, Pt. I. ch. i. p. 4. 
 
 t Ibid, p. 12. Consequently he had no Sabbiith', 
 
82 Appendix. 
 
 TertuUian says, 
 
 In the beginning of llie world the Lord commanded Adam and Eve that 
 they should not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the 
 Garden. Which had been sufficient for their justification, had it been 
 observed. For in that law all other precepts were included, which after- 
 wards were given by Moses. J 
 
 Theodoret observes. 
 
 The Sabbath came not in by nature, but by Moses's law. 
 
 In this he is supported by Damascenus.§ 
 
 Venerable Bede says, that 
 
 To the fathers before the law, all days were equal, the seventh day hav- 
 ing no priority before the others. 
 
 This he calls the hberty of th.e natural Sabbath, which ought to 
 be restored at the coming of Christ. |1 
 
 Irenseus observes, that 
 
 Abraham, Noah, Lot, and Enoch, were justified without Sabbaths.* 
 
 In this he is supported by TertuUian. t 
 
 Eusebius J states, that the patriarchs before Moses kept not 
 any Sabbath. This he confirms in his first book, De Demonstra- 
 tione Evangeliea, and sixth chapter, and in his seventli, De Prse- 
 paratione.§ In the above Epiphanius supports Eusebius. [| 
 
 The patriarchs had special ordinances of religion, i. e. rehgious 
 rites, given to them, of which we have the account in Genesis. 
 Noah sacrificed and was permitted to eat animals, but forbidden 
 to eat blood oi things strangled. He was taught the difference 
 between clean and unclean animals, &c., but he was not ordered 
 to keep any Sabbath. 
 
 § Ibid. p. 15. : Ibid. II Ibid. 
 
 * Iren. Adv. Hicres. lib. iv. cap. xxx., Heylin, Pt. I. ch. i. p. 53. 
 t Ibid. t In his Ecc. Hist. lib. i. cap. iv. 
 
 § Heylin, Pt. I. ch. ii. p. 34. || Ibid. 
 
Appendix. 83 
 
 The Jews had ci tradition that seven precepts of morality or 
 religion were given to Noah : That they should not steal, that they 
 should ordain magistrates, &c., &c. But not a word is found of 
 the Sabbath. Tin's shews the opinion of the very ancient Jews, 
 and is no contemptible authority. If 
 
 How absurd to suppose, if the Sabbath where instituted at the 
 creation, that the author of Genesis should write the history of 
 2000 years and not say a word of this, the most important of all 
 religious rites ever established ! 
 
 Josephus states,** that the Sabbath was unknown (ill Moses 
 declared it. Mercerus states, that many Rabbins teach the same 
 thing, and amongst them Solomon Jarchi, Moses Bar Nachman, 
 E. Ishmael, R. Abraham, Levi Ben Gersom, Aberbinel, Mauasseh 
 Ben Israel; and so it is held in the Sepher Cozri and the Seder 
 01am. tt These are surely very great authorities. The Jews, no 
 doubt, would have deduced their favourite Sabbath from the 
 beginning, if they could have shewn a shadow of any authority. 
 
 Jeremy Taylor, in his Ductor Dubitantium, in the cliapter on 
 Tradition, asserts, that tlie fourth commandment is entirely 
 abrogated, and that the Lord's-day was not instituted in ' virtue 
 of it.' * 
 
 The author has no little pleasure in having the opportunity o f 
 stating, that he unexpectedly discovered that he has the excellent 
 society of Quakers or Eriends on his side. The Rev. Dr Glover 
 says, in his remarks on Marsli's Comparative Yiew,t 
 
 Barclay, in his Apology, swept away Sabbaths. 
 
 He had a consultation of his society about changing the 
 Jjord's-day from Sunday to Thursday. J 
 
 "H Maimon. de Sabb. Morer, Dial. U. ** Ant. lib. i. , 
 
 tt Vide Morel's Dial. II, p. 142. 
 
 * Glover's Remarks on Bishop Marsh's Cornp. View, Pt. v, p. 52. 
 
 t S. V. 
 
 i In Orat. de Sabb., Hcylin, Pt. ii, ch. v, pp. 189; 191. 
 
B4 Appendix. 
 
 Philo § says, tliat the birth-day of the world being lost to men, 
 God made it known to them by the special miracle of the fall of 
 manna, on the sixth day, and its preservation from corruption on 
 the seventh, which was the first light which Moses had of the 
 8abbath.il 
 
 This opinion is supported by Zanchius, 
 
 Ut politicse et cevemoniales, sic etiam morales leges quae decalogi nomine 
 significantur, quatenus per Mosen traditse fuerunt Israelites, ad nos 
 Christianos nihil pertinent, &c : 
 
 As neither the judicial nor the ceremonial, so neither the 
 moral law contained in the Decalogue, doth any way concern us 
 Christians, as given by Moses to the Jews, &c.^ 
 
 The work called Athanasius Synopsis Sacrse Scrip, states, that 
 the Sabbath took its beginning in the desert. This is confirmed 
 by St. Jerom,* by Epiphanius,t and by Damascenus.J 
 
 St Cyril De Test. Paschal, Hom. 6, says, that the seventh day 
 was fixed upon in preference to any other, because the Jews had 
 fallen into the Egyptian idolatry, the worship of the sun and 
 planets ; and God fixed on the seventh, the day when he finished 
 his work, to remind them that their Gods were the work of 
 his hand.§ 
 
 Mr Hughes says, after this ordinance had fallen into neglect 
 throiigh the corruption and ignorance of mankind : that must le 
 the corruption of Noah, of Shem, and Japhet, of Job, Abraham, 
 and Melchizedeck, of Isaac and Jacob, &c., &c. If it was thus 
 lost, how does it happen that God never once reproached them 
 for it ? We hear of many offences, but never of that of Sabbath- 
 breaking. We hear of many good actions and indifferent events, 
 but nothing of Sabbath-keeping — instructions at various times 
 
 § De Vita iVIosi, lib. i. || Heylin, Pt. i, ch. iv, p. 70. 
 
 1[ De Redempt. lib. i. cap. xi. Th. 1 . ; Heylin, Pt. i. ch. iv. p. 70. 
 * In Ezech. xx. 
 
 f De Pond, et Mensur, N. 22 ; also advers. Hasres. lib. i. Hasr. 6, N. 5. 
 X De Fide orthod. lib. iv, cap. xxiv. Heylin Pt. i, ch. iv, p. 74. 
 § Heylin, ibid. 80. 
 
jVi'PENDIX. 85 
 
 or various rites of worsliipj but tiotliing of tlic neglected and 
 forgotten Sabbath. When Job's kind friends \Tore racking their 
 imaginations to find some jossible crime to lay to his charge 
 why did they not suppose, amongst their possibilities, that he 
 might have been guilty of Sabbath-breaking ? The answer is, they 
 knew nothing about it. There was no Sabbath to break. He 
 was in a much more advantageous situation than our apprentices ; 
 it was not in his power to commit the sin. He was never 
 exposed to the temptation. 
 
 When Mr Hughes contends that the Sabbath must have 
 fallen into disuse, he forgets the extreme improbability of this 
 doctrine, if the constant communications with Jehovah are 
 considered. 
 
 It is perfectly absurd to suppose that such a rite should have 
 been forgotten by the Israelites from the death of Jacob and 
 Joseph, (if the Samaritan text be taken, the only chronological 
 account that can be received,) till the time of Moses, perhaps 150 
 years. It is absolutely impossible that it should have been for- 
 gotten. If it were forgotten, a miracle must have been worked 
 to cause the effect. Did Noah know it ? Erom Noah to Abra- 
 ham is many 'generations. I apprehend the state of the case is 
 precisely this : 
 
 Here is a doubt whether the Sabbath was instituted at the 
 creation or not. The only argument for it is the text of Genesis. 
 In order to shew that it was not then instituted, and that the 
 text cannot have that meaning, it would, in the common affairs 
 of life, only be necessary to shew, that it was instituted at some 
 other time, and that would settle the question. We know for a 
 certainty that it was instituted at the time of the Exod. Tlien is 
 it not, as the Eev. Mr Grascomb says, to desert plain truth and 
 hunt after error to seek for some other doubtful, imaginary time ? 
 And that, too, a time when, as it has lately been observed, from 
 the innocence of Adam and other circumstances of his situation, 
 it would not have been instituted without an absurdity ! 
 
b6 Appendix. 
 
 Pt. II. Par. 29. The Sabbath was not only given as a sign of 
 the covenant and limited to the children of Israel, but the whole 
 Decalogue also was thus given. In Deuteronomy iv. 1, it 
 is said, 
 
 Now, therefore, hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes, and unto the judg- 
 ments which I teach you, for to do them, that ye may live, and go in and 
 possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers giveth you. 
 
 In the 13th and 14th verses this is explained; the Decalogue 
 is expressly named; it is called a covenant, and limited to the 
 Israelites. 
 
 And he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to 
 perform, even ten commandments, and he wrote them upon two tables of 
 stone. And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes, 
 and judgments, that ye might do them in the land whither you go over to 
 possess it. 
 
 That ye might do them in the land, &c., not that you might 
 do them for ever or every where, which would have been an absurd, 
 and, from the revolving nature of the globe, an impossible order. 
 See 1 Kings viii, 9. He declared Ids covenant. What covenant? 
 3oen Ten Commandments. 
 
 In the liturgy established in the second year of Edward VI 
 the decalogue was not inserted. This clearly proves that Cranmer, 
 Latimer, Hooper, liidley, and the otjier celebrated divines of that 
 day viewed this matter in the point of view in which it is here 
 represented. It was afterward obtruded into it by the Puritans, 
 together with some other matters which would have been much 
 better left out.* 
 
 It is surely not necessary to say, that the words of God must 
 not be construed to make him order an impossibity or talk 
 nonsense. When he ordered the Israelites to keep the seventh 
 dai/ holy, he ordered what was possible, and consistent with good 
 
 See Ilcylin, Pt ii, ch. viii, p. 2'10. 
 
Appendix. 87 
 
 sense, as he restricted it to the Israelites in Canaan. It is evident 
 from the difference in the meridians and the unequal rising and 
 setting of the sun, if he had not limited it, he would have given 
 a command which it was impossible to obey. And this is another 
 strong argument in favour of Dr Paley's doctrine, that the 
 seventh-day Sabbath was not instituted at the creation for the 
 whole world, and against the propositions of Mr Hughes. 
 
 Tor the various reasons assigned in Pt. II, Par. 7 and 30, it 
 is very clear that the sabbatical institution cannot be construed 
 to extend to the Gentiles ; but if any doubt should remain, it is 
 at once settled by St Paul and the Apostles, who expressly 
 declared as it has been shewn, Pt. I, Par. 37 — 40, that they 
 SHOULD OBSERVE NO SUCH THING. Ignatius says. 
 
 We observe the Lord's-day. banishing every appearance of grief, and 
 esteeming it a sin either to fast or kneel.* 
 
 St Barnabas says, 
 
 We keep the eighth day with gladness. f 
 
 Pt. II. Par. 48. St Ignatius, in his Epistle to the Philippians^ 
 says, that those who fasted on the Sundays were murderers of the 
 Lord, and that they ought to be kept as festivals and days of 
 rejoicings.J 
 
 St Basil,§ St Jerom,|i St Austin,! St Hilaries,** Ambrose,i-t 
 all condemn praying on the knees on Sundays.JJ 
 
 Origen §§ condemns the observance of all festivals. He says, 
 
 To the good man every day is a Tjord' s-clay .\\^ 
 
 In the 29 th Canon of the Council of Laodicea persons are 
 
 • Ad Magne."!. p. 35. 
 
 t Epist. Cathol. s. xi. p. 244 ; Caleb Fleming, p. 56. 
 
 I Heylin, Pt. U. ch. ii. p. 41. § Lib. de Sp. S. cap. xxvii. 
 
 II Adv. Luciferian. II Epist. 118. ** Pra;fat. in Psalm, 
 tt Sevm. 62. %% Heylin. 
 
 §§ In Gen. hom. 10, cont. Cels. lib. viii. II II Heylin, p. 55. 
 
88 Appendix. 
 
 required to abstain from work, Hinch and ITitsiandm.en excepied.*i*fi 
 St Chrj'sostom *** says that after tlie congregation is dismissed 
 on the Sunday, every man might apply himself to his lawful 
 business. Origen confirms this,* and says, that the service ought 
 not to last more than two or three hours. f 
 
 St Athanasius J says. 
 
 When God had finished the first creation, he did betake himself to rest, 
 and therefore those of tliat creation did celebrate their Sabbath on the 
 seventh day. But the accomplishment of the new creation hath no end 
 at all, and therefore God still worketh, as the gospel teacheth. Hence is 
 it, that we keep no Sabbath, as the ancients did, expecting an eternal 
 Sabbath, which shall have no end.§ 
 
 One more passage fram Athanasius. I give the Latin, not 
 the Greek. 
 
 In die Sabbati congregati sumus, non quod laboremus Judaismo, nun- 
 quam enim falsa Sabbat vel attigerimus, sed in Sabbato ideo convenimus 
 ut Dominum Sabbati Jesum adoreraus. Olim certe priscis illis hominibus 
 in summo pretio Sabbatum fuit quam quidem solennitatem, Dominus in 
 Diem Dorainicam transtulit. Neque nos tamen nostra authokitate 
 (a4>' kaUTCuv) Sabbatum vilipendimus, sed Propheta est qui ilkid regiat 
 ac dicit, Novilunia vestra et sabbata vestra odit anima mea. Quoad- 
 usque enim ea agebantur quae digna erant legis institutione, vel potius 
 quamdiu nondum venerat magister, res psedagogicEe vim suam authorita- 
 temque obtinebant, cseterum qum jam adesset magister, irritus ociosusque 
 factus est peedagogus, ut, exorto sole, candela cessat. || 
 
 St Augustiu says, 
 
 Tempore gratiaa revelatEe, observatio ilia Sabbati, quas unius dici vaca- 
 tione figurabatur, ablata est ab observatione fidelium : 
 
 n Ibid. p. 79. 
 *** Horn. V. in Matt, i, and Horn. III. in John iii. 
 • In Numer. Horn. 2. f Heylin, ut supra, p. 80. 
 
 X Homil. de Sabb. et Circum. 
 § Heylin, Pt. I. ch. viii. p. 1S3. 
 
 II Usp) (Tiropov, 1061. [We retain the Latin, because Mr Higgina 
 gave it, but we subjoin a literal translation ; 
 We assembled together on the Sabbath day, not because we are influeti- 
 
Appendix. 89 
 
 "The keeping of the Sabbath, which is figured by the resting of 
 a particular day, is taken away from the observation of the 
 faithful." 1 
 
 Again, St Augustin says, that the Sabbath was not kept in the 
 church of Christ : 
 
 In illis deyem praceptia, excepta Sabbati obsevvatione, dicatur mihi 
 quid non sit observandum a Christiano ? • 
 
 "What is there in all the Decalogue, except the keeping of 
 the Sabbath, which is not punctually to be observed of every 
 Christian ? " t 
 
 Again, speaking of circumcision, sabbath, sacrifices, &c., St 
 Augustin says, that it is not lawful for a Christian to observe the 
 Sabbath : 
 
 Quibus Christianis uti fas non est, quale est Sabbatum, circumcisio, 
 sacrificia, &c. I 
 
 Again :§ 
 
 Quisquis diem ilium observat, sicut litera sonat, carnaliter sapit. Sapere 
 autem secundum carnem mors est : 
 
 ced by Judaism, for we never had to do with false Sabbaths, but we meet 
 together on the Sabbath to the end that we may worship Jesus the Lord 
 of the Sabbath. Formerly the Sabbath was held in great esteem by the 
 ancients, which solemnity Our Lord has transferred to the Lord's day. 
 Yet we do not on our own authority set at naught the Sabbath : it is the 
 prophet who rules so, saying, " My soul abhors your new moons and your 
 sabbaths." For whilst those things were done which were worthy of the 
 institution of the law, or rather whilst the Master was not yet come, the 
 schoolmaster maintained his force and authority ; but when the master 
 was come, the schoolmaster became vain and useless, as the candle loses 
 its light, when the sun rises.] 
 
 t De Gen. ad Lit. iv. cap. xiii. ; Heylin, pp. 183, 184. 
 
 * De Sp. et Lit. cap. xiv. 
 
 t Also see de Genesi contra Manich. lib. i, cap. xxii ; Contra Adimant . 
 cap. 2, Qu. in Exod. 1, ii, qu. 173. 
 
 J Ue Util. credend., cap. iii. § De Sp. et Lit. cap. xiv. 
 
 12 
 
90 Appendix. 
 
 He that doth literally keep the Sabbath savours of the flesh ; 
 but to savour of the flesh is death, || 
 
 In the last section of his work De Civitate Dei, lib. xxii, cap. 
 30, he has similar sentiments at length. His strongest passage 
 is this : 
 
 Hie inter alias civilis theologiae superstitiones repreliendit etiara sacra- 
 menta (Seneca) Judieorum et maxirae Sabbata, inutiliter eos facere 
 affirmans quod per illos singulos septem inteipositos dies, septimam fere 
 partem a2tatis suse perdant vacando, et multa in tempore urgentia non 
 agendo laedantur. Christianos jam tunc Judsuis inimicissimos in neutram 
 partem commemorare ausus est, ne vel laudaret contra suiE patriae 
 VETEREM coNsuEiuDiKEM vcl reprgUenderet contra propriam forsitan 
 voluntatem.H 
 
 It is here evident that the Christians did not rest on the 
 Sabbath, for they are put in direct opposition to the Jews that 
 did j and Augustin remarks, that Seneca, who was blaming the 
 Jews for the idleness of the Sabbath, might have praised the 
 Christians for not resting on the Sabbath. This passage is of 
 great force ; for it bears strongly on the times of Seneca and on 
 Angustin's days. The Christians are here distinctly stated as 
 acting contra veterem patrim consuefudinem. 
 
 Origen says, 
 
 Omnis qui vivit in Christo semp&r in Sabbatis vivit. • 
 
 St Chrysostom t says. 
 
 What use is there of a Sabbath to him whose conscience is a contiuual 
 feast? 
 
 He goes on to say, that the fourth commandment to Christians 
 means, Sabbalum celebrare spirituale. % 
 
 II Heylin, ut supra, p. 184. De Spiritu et Littera, Vol. X, p. S9, ed. 
 Benedict. 
 
 H Id. vi, 11. 
 
 • Tract. XIX, in Matt. See also Clemens Alex. Stiom. lib. iv. 
 Heylin, ib. 
 
 t Horn. 39, in Matt. xii. J Heylin, ut supra, p. 186. 
 
Appendix. 91 
 
 Conradas Diatericus endeavours to prove from St Jerom, that 
 St Paul worked on the Sunday at his trade of tent-making when 
 he had no persons to preadh to : 
 
 Hieronymus collegitex Act. xviii, 3, 4, quod die etiam Dominica, quando, 
 quibus in publico conventu concionaretur, non habebat, manibus suis 
 laboravit. 
 
 Whatever this may prove of Paul, it proves the opinion of St 
 Jerom.§ 
 
 The Eev. Mr Glover, in his Observations on Marsh's Com- 
 parative View, admits, that both the Saturday and Sunday were 
 kept by the early Christians. He says, the former was held as 
 the Sabbath, and the latter as a holy day ; the one as a day of 
 holy rest, the other as a day from which business was not exclvded, 
 but yet mingled with devotion. || 
 
 The council of Laodicea, held A. D. 36 1, ordered the Sunday 
 to be kept, and forbade the Saturday ; but it says nothing about 
 its being so ordered in compliance with apostolical tradition. 
 The catechism of the council of Trent assigns the reason for the 
 Sunday being kept and not the Saturday. It says, 'Placuit 
 autem ecclesise Dei, ut diei Sabbati cultus et celebratus in domi- 
 uicum transferretur diem.' Here no tradition or gospel authority 
 is assigned, but only js/ae2<i^ ecclesicB, 'it has pleased the church/* 
 Mr Glover then goes on to say. 
 
 The Protestant has not the sanction of the written word for the institu- 
 tion of the first day of the week as a Sabbath, and the Catholic does not 
 reckon it as an apostolical tradition. The ancient church of Christ justly 
 considered it as a fit subject on which its discretion might be exercised.f 
 
 Pt. II. Par. 48. Kneeling, &c. 
 
 To 06 ev KvpiaKy not to bend the knee on the Sabbath-day is a signi- 
 fication of our resurrection, by means of which, through the grace of 
 
 § Ibid. Pt. II, ch. i, p. 17. 
 |[ P. 136. 
 * Glover's Obs. on Marsh's Comp. View, p. 138. f lb. 
 
92 Appendix. 
 
 Christ, we were freed from sin and death which is destroyed by him. And 
 this custom began from the time of the Apostles, as says the blessed Ire- 
 n^us the Martyr, and Bishop of Lyons, in his book on the Passover; in 
 which he makes mention of the Pentecost when we do not bend the knee 
 as it is the same as Sunday, and for the same reason. | 
 
 Pt. II. Par. 50. St. Thomas Aquinas states, that the Sunday 
 succeeded to the Sabbath not by a command of the law, but by 
 the authority of the church ; on which account things were done 
 on the Sunday which could not be done on the Sabbath.* 
 
 Calvin in his book of Institutions, lib. ii, cap. viii, p. 84, con- 
 demneth some of the Catholics as people Qui Judaica opinione 
 populum superioribus seculis imbuerunt, who in the times before 
 possessed the people's minds with so much Judaism, that they 
 had changed the day, indeed, as in dishonour of the Jews, but 
 otherwise retained the former sanctity thereof ; which needs must 
 be, saith he, if there remain with us (as the Papists taught) the 
 same opinion of the mysteries and various significations of davs 
 and times, which the Jews once had. And certainly, saith he, 
 we see what dangerous effects have followed on so false a 
 doctrine ; those which adhere to their instructions having exceed- 
 ingly outgone the Jews, — ckassa caunaliqub sabbatismi 
 suPEKSTiTioNB, in their gross and carnal s v^erdHknsabout the 
 Sabbath.^ 
 
 Calvin says, it was not without good reason that the ancients 
 appointed the Lord's-day to supply the place of the Jewish 
 Sabbath : 
 
 Non sine delectu Dominicum, quern vocamus, diem veteres in locum 
 sabbati subrogaruut.J 
 
 Mr Heylin justly observes, Calvin would not have used the 
 word veteres if he had meant the Apostles or Jesus Christ. § 
 
 I In Respons. Justini ad Quaest. 115, ad orthodoxos, quoted in Grabbe's 
 Irenseus. p. 476 ; vide also Augustin. Epist. cix, cap. xv. edd. Benedictin. 
 • Heylin, Pt. ii. ch. vi, p. 171. t Ibid. p. 180. 
 
 t Institut. lib. ii, cap. viii. § Pt. ii, ch. vi, s. 7. 
 
Appendix. 93 
 
 Iq another place Calvin says, that however he approved of 
 the Lord's-day meetings, yet stood not he so much for the 
 number seven, as to confine the church unto it ; Non tamen 
 numerum septenarium ita se movere, ut ejus servituti ecclesias 
 astringeret. || 
 
 What say the John Knoxites of Scotland to this ? 
 
 Beza, in Apoc. ii, 10, so far confirms Calvin,* as expressly to 
 maintain, that there ought to be no cessation from work : sic 
 tamen ut Judaica cessatio ab omni opere non observaretur. 
 
 Bucer goes further, and not only calls it a superstition, but an 
 apostacy from Christ, to think that working on the Lord's-day, in 
 itself considered, is a sinful thing, let, like the author, all these 
 divines approve keeping the day from all but necessary work. 
 
 It cannot be proved from the Gospels that Jesus ever said a 
 word in favour of the Sabbath. But it is said it may have 
 descended by Apostolic tradition. Then why did not the Apostles, 
 when writing about many less important matters, inform us of it ? 
 If it were of apostolic institution, it would have been found in 
 their writings or the writings of their immediate successors. But 
 though much is said against it, as I have shewn, by Paul, &c,, 
 not a word can be produced in its favour either in Clemens 
 Eomanus, Ignatius, Polycarp, Hermas, Baruabas, TertuUian, 
 Justin, IreuEeus, Minutius, Origen, or in short any one of the 
 early fathers. And what is still more striking they were writing 
 daily about the impropriety of observing the Jewish Sabbath, 
 which brought the matter fully into consideration. If the 
 
 II Heylin, Pt. ii, ch. vi, b. 6. 
 • Ibid. s. 5. 
 When the author of this tract was at Geneva, he was shewn the place 
 on tlie Plain Palais where J. Calvin, after he was turned 70 years of age, 
 used to play at balls with the boys on a Sunday afternoon, in order to 
 exhibit an example of the use of his Christian liberty. 
 
94 Appendix. 
 
 Apostles or the early Fathers had not written, perhaps the plea of 
 tradition would have been more plausible; but they did write 
 and they all wrote against it — except Clemens Alexandrinus, who, 
 having nothing, true to say in its favour, had recourse to pious 
 frauds, six or seven of which Mr Hughes has had the candour to 
 expose. The general expressions of St Paul againsst days and 
 Sabbaths is decisive against apostolical authority for them. 
 
 In the year 1537, a book was published, signed by all the 
 bishops, eight archdeacons, and seventeen doctors, and afterwards 
 republished by authority of the King and Parliament, in which it is 
 expressly lield, that the Sunday is an institution established b^ the 
 CAzircA,2mi that men may work at necessary works, to saVe tkeir com 
 or cattle, and that men need have no scrapie of conscience at work- 
 ing to save what God has sent ; but rather, they ought to have 
 scruples of conscience at neglecting to save it.* This was after- 
 ward approved by Parliament. In this document men are parti- 
 cularly charged not to be too scrapulous in abstaining from work 
 on the Sabbath-day .t 
 
 It is clear that the Patriarchs had no fixed periodical times of 
 worship. If they could do without them, Christians cannot be 
 required to observe them, unless they were ordered by Christ or 
 his apostles. But where are they ordered ? With St Jerom they 
 may again say, Non credimus quia non legimus. 
 
 Mr Hughes has some very pertinent remarks upon Parag. 55 
 of Part II, and asks why the term Lord's supper, which is a 
 term used in 1 Cor., is not derived from Apollo's Delphic feasts. 
 The fact is, it is ultimately so derived, because the word Lord 
 was adopted into the Jewish system from the Gentiles, as was 
 shewn in Par. 81, to avoid the necessity of writing the name of 
 Jehovah, contrary to the third commandment. The observation 
 respecting the term Lord's-day was only made to. shew, what in 
 fact it does shew, that the Lord''s-day cannot have been called by 
 
 * Heylin, Pt. II, ch. vii, p. 231. t Ibid. 
 
Appendix. 95 
 
 that name from Jesus, because it had that name before Jesus was 
 born. Therefore the conclusion drawn from the name, by Dr 
 Priestley and Dr Paley, cannot be supported. It overturns their 
 argument : it is not cited for any thing else. The observation 
 also, respecting the name Domina, stands equally unrefuted. To 
 remove any doubt respecting the assertion that the Sun was 
 actually called by the name JDominus, I refer to Porphyry de 
 Abstinentia, lib. iv. It certainly was called by the Gentiles the 
 day of the Lord Sol, before Jesus was born : then how is it 
 possible to deduce from this, a proof of the existence of a Chris- 
 tian Sabbath ? Had the day been called by St John xupiaxYj out 
 of honour to Jesus, it would invariably have had this title; 
 instead of which, it is called by various names by the Fathers — 
 as, ihe first clay, i)\Q first day of the week, the eighth day. Sabbath, 
 Christian Sabbath, Sunday,'*' &c. This variation would not 
 have taken place if it had been of divine institution. 
 
 The expression used by Constantine, (see the Latin of Ft. II, 
 Par. 49,) VenerabiU die Sohs, evidently shews that this day of 
 the Sun was considered venerable without any reference to 
 Christianity. If he had considered it venerable on account of 
 any relation it bore to the Christian religion, he would have said. 
 Veneralili die Domini or Christi. 
 
 The crime of Sabbath-breaking entirely depends upon the 
 quo animo of the actor. By inducing a general bebef, which is 
 unfounded in truth, that the Sabbath is a divine institution, the 
 persons thus propagating a falsehood, ijregnant with vice and 
 crime, are responsible for the whole of it. If a person believe the 
 Sabbath to be a divine institute and break it, he is guilty of 
 Sabbath-breaking. By inculcating this false doctrine people are 
 led into temptation. To the list of crimes a crime is added. 
 Good God ! have we not crimes enough, without creating new 
 ones? 
 
 • Vide Cypr. Ep. i)9 ; Basil de Sp. ; St Aug. in Ps. 93 ; Concil. 
 Forojulien, Can. 13 ; Morer, Dial. I, p. 57, 8vo. 
 
9G Appendix. 
 
 The strictness of the modern Pharisees is not new. It was 
 preached at a market-towa of Oxfordshire, that it was as great a 
 sin to do any kind of work on Sunday as to commit murder j at 
 another church, in Suffolk, that to ring more bells than one on 
 Sunday was as bad as murder : and, at a church in Norfolk, that 
 it was as sinful in a man to make a feast on a Sunday, as to cut 
 the throats of his children ; and that every one who d'd any kind 
 of work on Sunday, ought to be put to death.* To these wicked 
 absurdities we are returning. 
 
 It has been asked. Why is the fourth commandment in our 
 liturgy ? It is notorious that our liturgy was drawn up to assimilate 
 to the thirty-nine articles which were only a covenant of peace—' 
 whence more than one inconsistency took place. How absurd is 
 it to read the fourth commandment which enjoys to keep the 
 Saturday as a Sabbath, and then to say, Lord have msrcy upon m^ 
 and incline our hearts to Jceep this law, this seventh day, this 
 Saturday, holy, and yet weekly to break it in every possible, 
 conceivable manner ! The poof of what I here assert is found in 
 the fact, that, as before remarked, the Decalogue was not in the 
 first liturgy of Edward the Sixth, which was drawn up by or 
 under the inspection of the most eminent of the reforming clergy ; 
 but was foisted in afterward, to mollify, if possible, the Puritans, 
 who at that time (as at this) were seeking the Lord; but at last 
 they found their Lord on the scaffold at AVhitehall. 
 
 Mr Heylin has well observed, (Pt. II. ch. viii,) that the persons 
 who drew up the above-quoted law of Edward, were the same 
 persons who revised the Liturgy, viz. Cranmer, Ridley, &c., and 
 it cannot be believed that they would intentionally contradict 
 themselves, and that too, in the self-same parliament. The 
 statute must be taken as a construction of what was meant by the 
 liturgy. It is impossible to take them otherwise. This state of 
 affairs respecting the Sunday was followed by the act of Elizabeth, 
 
 Heylin, Pt. II, ch. viii, p. 253. 
 
Appendix. 97 
 
 quoted Par. 67, which fully confirms Mr Hcyliii'sand the author's 
 view of the subject. 
 
 I'indal says, in his Declaration of .Baptism, and in his Answer 
 to Sir Thomas More,* 
 
 As for the Sabbath, we be Lords over the Sabbath, and may yet change 
 it into Monday, or any other day, as we see need. 
 
 Bishop Hooper, in his Treatise on the Ten Commandments, 
 confirms Tind^l, saying. 
 
 We may not think that God gave any more holiness to the Sabbath 
 than to the other six days. 
 
 All this is confirmed by an act passed in the fifth and sixth of 
 Edward YI, whioh classes the Sundays as festivals to be fixed 
 according to the discretion of the rulers of countries, and says, that 
 it shall be lawful to every husbandman, labourer, fisherman, and 
 other persons, to worh on all festival and holy days in harvest 
 and such times as necessity shall require.f 
 
 T)r Heylin says. 
 
 Thus have we proved, that by the doctrine of the Protestants, of what 
 side soever, and those of greatest credit in their several churches, eighteen 
 by name, and all the Lutherans in general, of the same opinion, that the 
 Lord's day is of no other institution than the authority of the church. 
 Which proveth the last of the three theses — That still the Chukch 
 
 HATH POWER TO CHANGE THE DAY AND TO TRANSFER it to SOmC Other.J 
 
 Socrates is a very good historical authority, and he is positive. 
 
 That neither Christ nor his apostles made any law concerning festivals, 
 but their main end was, to persuade Christians to lead a godly and virtuous 
 life.§ 
 
 Though some expressions in the homilies may be doubtful as 
 to their meaning, in consequence of the wish to mediate or tem- 
 porize with the violence of the Puritans, yet the following passage 
 
 • P. 287. t Heylin, Pt. II, ch. viii, p. 238. 
 
 I Ibid. Pt. II, ch. vi, sec. 8. 
 § Lib. V, cap. xxii, Mover, II, p. 228. 
 
 13 
 
98 Appendix. 
 
 from one of them will pretty well prove the doctrine of the English 
 church. Speaking of reverence to the day, 
 
 We do it OUT of choice, after the example of Christian people who 
 began this custom from the ascension of our Lord. 
 
 The Eev. Mr Morer says. 
 
 And if out of choice, to he sure they had liberty to let it alone, or to 
 alter it in any way they thought proper. 
 
 The power to alter or change -—the principle is all that is con- 
 tended for. The expediency is a different question. The opinion 
 of the author upon that subject may be seen in his last section ; 
 and the principle was acknowledged, and never since annulled, 
 by Edward YI, in the act of Parliament which says. 
 
 Neither is it to be thought that there is any certain or definite number 
 of days prescribed in holy scripture, ,but the appointment both of the time 
 and also of the number of days is left by the authority of God's word 
 unto the liberty of Christ's church, to be determined and assigned 
 orderly in every country by the discretion of the rulers and minister^ 
 thereof, as they shall judge most expedient to the true setting forth of 
 God's glory, and edification of the people. 
 
 The homily alluded to above, in another place says. 
 
 After the ascension, godly. Christian people, taking the fourth command- 
 ment not for a law, but for an example, began to set apart a standing day 
 for the worship of God, and they chose the first day of the week as the 
 best day to celebrate the resurrection. f 
 
 Pt. IT. Par. 72. It is delightful to see the tailor, the grocer, 
 or the chandler, here alluded to, escape after church from his close 
 and stinking shop to enjoy the roses and lilies, a mile or two 
 out of town, at his little villa. The increase of this species 
 of enjoyment shews a greatly improved taste, — an improv- 
 ed moral taste; and probably the money saved by the 
 prevailing abstemiousness in the use of liquor alone may 
 
 • Dial. II. p. 222. 
 + Morer, Dial. II, p. 232 ; also Sanderson's Case of the Sabbath ; 
 Rivet, in Exod. xx. 
 
Appendix. 99 
 
 go far to furnish the means to tlie prudent and industrious trades- 
 man. 
 
 The CEUit and hypocrisy which prevailed with our legislators to 
 double the tolls upon persons of this description, are odious and 
 detestable. I am much pleased to learn, that our House of 
 Lords has made a standing order, that no turnpike bill shall 
 contain any of those clauses in future. This is the line of conduct 
 to secure their privileges. 
 
 Pope Gregory published a letter to the Roman citizens, in 
 which he calls those preachers of Antichrist, who taught that 
 people were to do no manner of work on the Sunday, or not to 
 go to the baths.* 
 
 Jeremy Taylor says, 
 
 The Lord's-day did not succeed in the place of the Sabhath, but the 
 Sabbath wag wholly abrogated, and the Lord's-day was merely of eccle- 
 siastical institution. t 
 
 Pt, II. Par. 74. What we learn from Barclay is most impor- 
 tant, namely, that it was once the intention of Calvin to cliange it 
 to Thursday, as an instance of Christian liberty, — to change it 
 from the Sunday, in honour of the resurrection, to Thursday, in 
 honour of the ascension. J 
 
 Sunday is called by Tostatus, Bellarmine, Azorius, and Estius, 
 (Cathohcs,) a canonical, hdmax appointment; by Chemnitius, 
 Calvin, Peter Martyr, and Eivet, (Protestants,) a token of 
 Christian liberty. § 
 
 Sunday is called by one of our own homilies, the choice of 
 Christian people immediateli/ after the resurrection of our Lord. 
 Therefore, as Mr Morer well observes, if they had the choice, 
 they might have chosen to have done without it, or fixed it for 
 some other day. 
 
 • Heylin, Pt. 11, ch. v, p. 132. 
 
 t Glover's Obs. on Marsh's Comp. View, p. 134. 
 
 I Rev. Thomas Morer, Dial. II, p. 216. 
 
 § Ibid. Dial. I, p. 58. 
 
100 Appendix. 
 
 The author's view respecting the Sabbath is justified by the 
 famous and venerable Prideaux, Dean of Norwich, and professor 
 at Oxford, in his Lectures published in the year 1625 j and he 
 was ably supported by the Rev. Dr Eobinson, of Gloucester, in 
 the public schools at Oxford, Anno 162S.* 
 
 In the public schools at Cambridge, in the year 1603, at the 
 commencement, this Thesis or proposition was publickly held by 
 one of the doctors, and received with approbation, and by the 
 Vicechancellor so determined — no one in that University or any 
 other ever putting up an Antithesis in opposition to it : Dies 
 DoMiNicus NiTiTUK vEKBo Dill. And the Eev. Dr Prideaux, to 
 whom I have just alluded, at the termination of a course of 
 lectures delivered the following conclusions, which were received 
 and approved by the University of Oxford and published : Krst, 
 that the Sabbath was not instituted in the first creation of the 
 world J nor ever kept by any of the ancient patriarchs who 
 lived before the law of Moses : therefore no moral and perpetual 
 precept as others are. Sect. 2. Secondly, that the sanctifying of 
 one day in seven is ceremonial only, and confined to the Jews; 
 not moral, to oblige us Christians to the like observation. Sect. 3 
 and 4. Thirdly, that the Lord's-day is foxxnded only on the 
 authority of the church, guided therein by the practise of the 
 Apostles : not on the fourth commandment, (which, in ihe seventh 
 section, he entitled a scandalous doctrine,) nor any other authority 
 in holy Scripture. Sect. 6 and 7. Fourthly, that ihe church hath 
 still authority to change the day ; though such authority be not fit 
 to be put in practice. Sect. 7. Fifthly, that in the celebration of it 
 there is no such cessation from the works of labour required of us as 
 was exacted of the Jews ; but that we may lawfully dress meat, 
 proportionable to every man's estate, and do such other things as 
 be no hindrance to the public service appointed for the day. Sect. 8. 
 Sixthly, that on the Lord's-day all recreations whatsoever are to 
 
 • Heylin, Pt. 11, ch. viii, p. 263. 
 
Appendix. 101 
 
 be allowed, ■which honestly may refresh the spirits, and increase 
 mutual love and neighbourhood amongst us : and, that the names 
 whereby the Jews did use to call their festivals (whereof the 
 Sabbath was the chief) were borrowed from a Hebrew word which 
 signifies to dance, and io mahe w.erry or rejoice. And, lastly, 
 that it appertains to the Christian magistrate to order and 
 appoint what pastimes on the Lord's-day are to be permitted, and 
 what prohibited; not unto every private person, much less to 
 enei-y man's rash zeal, (as his own words are,) who, out of a 
 schismatical stoicism, (debarring men from lawful pastimes) doth 
 incline to Judaism. Sect. 8.* 
 
 The question of its being in any sense apostohcal, or founded 
 on the practice of the apostles, is the only point wherein the Dean 
 differs from the author. His opinion is founded upon the appar- 
 ent assembling on the first day of the week, upon the appoaranee 
 of Jesus on the first day only, and upon the name of Lord's-day 
 being given to the Sunday. Upon these points, the most import- 
 ant of the arguments which the author has adverted to had not 
 been used in the Dean's time, atid they have all been refuted in 
 this work. 
 
 Since this work was put to press, I have learnt that lately a 
 treatise has been published by the learned Archbishop Whately, 
 in which he has viewed the subject exactly as it is done by the 
 author. 
 
 As the reader has seen, it is now proved, that these assemblies 
 of the first Christians were not always on the first day of the 
 week, several of the days called the first being in fact the second ; 
 that Jesus did not always appear on the first, but that if he did, 
 Peter was fishing on that day, which destroys effectually the 
 apostolical observance of the day; and that the name of Lord's- 
 day was not given to it in compliment to Jesus, but that it was 
 called so before he was born. Under these circumstances, it is 
 
 * Heylin, sect. 11. 
 
102 Appendix. 
 
 left to the reader to choose whether he will adopt the opinion of 
 the author or the Dean. It may be observed, that the Dean's 
 doctrine only goes to the expediency of adopting some one day in 
 seven in compliance with the example of the apostles : and the 
 author considers it of so little consequence that he will not con- 
 test the question a moment, if only the remainder of the reverend 
 Dean's opinions be adopted — opinions evidently so necessary for 
 the welfare of mankind, and which were, in the times of the Ee- 
 formation, the doctrines of the two Universities, and of the whole 
 church of England. 
 
 The Christian Advocate, observing on Pt. II, Par. 77, seems 
 annoyed that the term Sabbath-breaker should be applied to Jesus. 
 When Jesus ordered the bed to be carried through the streets of 
 Jerusalem on the Sabbath-day — ordered work to be done — order- 
 ed unnecessary work to be done — he justified every professor of 
 his religion in all future times in doing the same thing. And, 
 therefore, every person is justified in doing what work he pleases 
 on the Christian Sabbath, which is not forbidden by the municipal 
 law ; and our Government, in despatching its mailcoackes on Sun- 
 days, is justified in so doing. In using the expression Sabbath- 
 breaker, the author cannot fairly be construed as bringing an 
 accusation or charge against Jesus. It was, at least, never so 
 intended. No Christian, surely, will deny that Jesus had a right 
 to break or change or abolish the Sabbatli ? 
 
 I shall now conclude with a few questions to the Sabbatarians. 
 How can they account for it, that while Jesus Christ was in so 
 many situations which afforded him opportunities for enjoining it, 
 yet he never directed a Sabbath (the most important of all rites to 
 the temporal concerns of man) to be continued ? 
 
 If Sabbaths were to be continued, why are they not enjoined 
 in the Epistles of Peter, John, James, or Jude ? 
 
 Why did the apostles not except Sabbaths from the general 
 abolition of the Mosaic law, when they were making exceptions 
 of less important matters ? 
 
Appendix. 103 
 
 Why did St Paul not only not express liimself in their favour, 
 but why did he express himself iu every instance against them ? 
 
 1 confidently affirm that, if religion was not concerned, no man 
 of common sense would hesitate what conclusion he would come to 
 for one moment, or how he would answer these questions. I 
 affirm that I have proved, that the Christian Sabbath is not a 
 divine institution, or an institution established by Jesus Christ, by 
 as good rtegative evidence as the nature of the case would admit ; 
 and that I have proved it by the direct positive evidence of the 
 Apostles and of St Paul. And in this affirmation, I am supported 
 by the expressed opinions of the most learned divines, of almost all 
 sects and nations. 
 
 APPENDIX, No. 11. 
 
 One of the reverend schoolmasters in my neiglihourhood, having under- 
 stood that I was gone abroad, when I was in fact only gone to Scotland, 
 thought proper to take the opportunity of charging me with a falsehood, 
 when he supposed I could not defend myself, and wrote an anonymous 
 attack in the Doncaster paper, to which I sent the two following letters, the 
 latter of which the editor refused to insert : 
 
1 0-i. Appendix. 
 
 LETTEE I. 
 
 To the Editor of the Boncader Gazette. 
 
 Sir, 
 As you have allowed a reviewer in your paper to charge me with 
 the wilful suppression, in my Horae Sabbaticae, of an important 
 passage of J uslin Martyr's, I have a right to expect you to insert 
 my vindication. I received your paper of May 5, 1836, on my 
 journey. I could not apply to the original of my quotation until 
 I arrived here, or I should have sooner noticed it. 
 
 The reviewer in your paper says, ' But let them construe the 
 Greek word StaTraz/ro? literally, and its proper connexion with 
 the verb to which it belongs, and Justin Martyr's observation will 
 appear sound and oi.thodox. Eor the benefit of our unlearned 
 readers, we will just unravel this " mystery of iniquity" by in- 
 serting the erroneous translation, and afterwards re-translating the 
 passage, according to the original Greet.' 
 
 EEEONEOTJS TKANSLATION. 
 
 ' The new law will have you keep a perpetual Sabbath. You, 
 when you have passed a day in idleness, think you are religious.' 
 
 NEW TRANSLATION. 
 
 'The new law (i. e. the Christian dispensation) invariably 
 wishes or requires you to keep the Sabbath : when you pass one 
 day in leisure, or free from secular concerns, you suppose you are 
 religious, not considering for what pi'rpose the day has been com- 
 manded you.' 
 
 Your reviewer then observes, ' The words printed in italics, be 
 it observed, have been entirely suppressed in the erroneous trans- 
 lation.' 
 
APPBNBIX. 105 
 
 The following are the words of the passage in my work, Par. 
 38, Part II. p, 63 [2cl ed, p. 45]*: ' The new law will have you 
 keep a perpetual Sabbath ; and you, when you have passed one 
 day in idleness, think you are religious, mt knowing why that was 
 commanded you' 
 
 Now, Sir, you must see at once that I have not suppressed a 
 passage of Justin's alluded to, but that your reviewer has suppress- 
 ed an important passage in my book, namely the passage, not 
 KNOWING w/4y that was commanded you. He has suppressed the 
 very passage he has untruly charged me with suppressing. But 
 why did he not give the following passage from Justin, which is 
 in the same page of my book : ' For if there was no need of cir- 
 cumcision before Abrahanay nor of the observation of the Sabbaths, 
 and festivals^ and oblations before Moses, neither now likewise is 
 there any need of them after Jesns Christ. ' 
 
 Sir, your reviewer having made an attack upon my moral cha^ 
 racter, I have a right 10 expect the insertion of this, my very short 
 vindication. Upon his conduct, under his anonymous cover, I 
 shall make no observation. If my character had not been implic- 
 ated, I should not have noticed him or his observations ; but I 
 hope, for the honour of the cloth, that he is not a clCTgyman. 
 
 The translation in my book is perfectly correct, and, if you 
 iBsert this, I will send you a few lines for insertion to prove its 
 correctness. If you do not choose to do this, you will shew that 
 you allow your paper intentionally to be made the vehicle for an- 
 onymous slander, and 1 must then reserve my explanation for the 
 next edition t of my work, in which I shall shew that T am support- 
 ed in my doctrines, amongst others, by Bucer, Zuinglius, Calvin, 
 
 [* Page *5 of this present or third edition.] 
 
 [t If Mr G. lliggins had lived to superintend this third edition of his 
 work, there can he no douht that his examination of the testimony furnished 
 hy these new writers would have been equally successful with that which 
 we already have. But for all practical purposes, the work is complete, 
 and as such we leave it.J 
 
 14 
 
106 APPE^fDrx. 
 
 Melanctho, Archbishops Latimer and Cranmer, Bishops Ridley 
 and Hooper, Dean Prideaux, Dr Mede, Jeremy Taylor, and others, 
 the most eminent divines of the Church of England, the orthodox 
 doctrine of which, as expounded by these irillars of the church, my 
 book supports. 
 
 I remain, &c., G. H. 
 
 Minburgh, May 26, 1836. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 SlE, 
 
 In compliance with my promise, I send you the following ob- 
 servations on the disputed passage in Justin : 
 
 A controversy took place betwixt Dr Priestley and Mr Evanson, 
 in which the latter quoted the passage as given in my book, to 
 the translation of which Dr Priestley did not object, though your 
 reviewer's translation would have been decisively in his favour. I 
 thought it safer to depend upon these two learned men, agreeing, 
 when in opposition, to one another, than to adopt a new translat- 
 ion of my own. They were both right. The passage may be found 
 in Justin's work, p. 160, Thirlby's edition, or, I believe, in Jebb's 
 edition, p. 216 ; at least you will find it in the index, under the 
 word Sabbata. The translation of Mr Evanson is correct, only it 
 does not quite reach the strength of the original in my favour. 
 The adverb iiairoanot is for Zm iravro';, and supposes "xpovov 
 understood, and means ' at all times/ or rather, as Justin uses it, 
 * every day,' in opposition to i^lav fjiiepav ' one day' in the next 
 clause. The clause, of which the omission is imputed to me as 
 unfair and even dishonest, makes good my argument. 'You 
 Jews,' says Justin, ' do not know for what end God commanded 
 you to keep holy one day in seven. When you thus abstain from 
 labour one day in seven days, you think that you fully keep the 
 commandment; whereas God enjoined you to rest on one day, 
 that, by learning your duty and dependence on God, you may 
 learn to keep every day holy to him. And thus the proper Sab- 
 
Appendix, 107 
 
 bath in the sight of God is not to keep one day idle ; but to pre- 
 serve yourselves every day from crime/ This is, I believe, the 
 state of the argument, and is perfectly accordant with the doctrine 
 held by Justin in the passage given in my last letter, and in the 
 other passages from him in Par. 38 of my Horae Sabbaticse \j)age 
 ^h of the present edition {] whereas your reviewer's translation is 
 directly in opposition to them, and makes Justin directly and re- 
 peatedly contradict himself. 
 
 The word perpetual Sabbath is a close translation of the Latin 
 version, a proof what the opinion of that translation was. The 
 sense of ' invariably' ascribed to StairavTcxi is, I believe, quite 
 foreign to it, and if I am right in this, it proves your reviewer to 
 be either superficial or disingenuous. 
 
 I remain, Sir, your humble servant, 
 G. H. 
 
 This was refused admission bv the Editor. 
 
108 Appendix, No IIL 
 
 APPENPIX, No 111. 
 
 TABLE OF PASSAGES, IN THE NEW 
 
 TESTAMENT, IN WHICH THE 
 
 SABBATH IS MENTIONED, 
 
 L Ohrist^s disciples gather the ears of cokn on the 
 
 SabbatiI. 
 
 ^ Net mentioned ly St John. 
 
 Matt, xii, 1—8. Mark ii, 2o— 28, Lpke vi, 1—5. 
 
 At that time Jesus went on And it came to pass that he And it came to pass on Hie 
 the SABBATH DAY tliiough the went through the corn-fields on second sabbath after the first, 
 corn ; and his disciples were an the Sabbath-day, and his that iie went through the corn 
 hungred, and began to pluck disciples began, as they went, to fields; and his disciples plucked 
 the ears of corn, and to eat. pluck the cars of corn. the ears of com, and did eat, 
 
 rubbing them in their hands.^ 
 
 Eat when the Pharisees saw And the Pharisees said unto And certain of the Pharisees 
 it, they said unto him, " Behold hira, " Behold why do they said unto them, " Why do ye 
 thy disciples do that which is on the sabbath day that which that which is not lawful to do 
 not lawful to do upon the sab- is not lawful? " on the sabbath days?" 
 
 bath day." 
 
 But he said unto them, "Have And he said unto them, And Jesus answering them 
 
 ye not read what David did, "Have ye never read what said, " Have ye not read so 
 
 when he was an hungred, and David did when he hud need, much as this, what David did, 
 
 they that were with him ; and wasanhungred,he,andthey when himself was an hungred, 
 
 that were with him ? and they wliich were with him, 
 
 How he entered into the How he went into the house How he went into the house 
 house of God, and did eat the of God in the days of Abiathar of God, and did take and eat 
 shew-bread, which was not law- the high priest, and did eat the the shew-bread , and gave also to 
 ful for him to eat, neither for shew bread, which is not law- them that were with him ; 
 them which were with him, but ful for to eat hut for the priests, which it is not lawful to eat 
 only for the priests ! and gave also to them which but for the priests alone 2 " 
 
 were with him % " 
 
 Or have ye not read in the 
 law, how that on the sabbath 
 days the priests in the temple 
 profane the sabbath, and are 
 blameless ? But I say unto you, 
 that in this place is one greater 
 than the temple. But if ye had 
 known what this meaneth, I will 
 have merry, and not sacrifice, ye 
 would not have condemned the 
 guiltless. 
 
 And he said unto them " The 
 sabbath was made for man, and 
 not man for the sabbath : 
 
 For the Son of Man is Lord Therefore the Son of Man is And he said nnto them, That 
 even ol the sabbath day.'* Lord also of the sabbath." the Son of Man is Lord also of 
 
 the Sabbath. 
 
Appendix. No 111. 109 
 
 11. ChIUST heals the man having a WItHEEED HAND ON THE 
 
 Sabbath. 
 
 1[ Not ^jventioned by St John, 
 
 Matt, xii, 10—13. Ma&k i'i. 1—5. LuKfi Iv. 6—10, 
 
 And when he departed thence, And he entered af?ain into And it came to pass also on 
 he went into their synagogue; the synagogue; and there was another sabbnth, that he entered 
 and behold there was a man a man there which had a into the synagogue and taught : 
 which had his hand withered. withered hand. and there was a mtn whose 
 
 right hand was withered. 
 And they asked him, saying, And they walchsd him, And the scribes and Pharisees 
 " Is it lawful to heal on the whether he would iieal him on watched him, whether he would 
 sabbath days? " that they the sabbath day; that they heal on the saobath day; that 
 might accuse him. And he might accuse him. And he they ml"ht find an arcusation 
 Baid untothem, saith unto the man which had agrhisl him. Biit he knew their 
 
 the withered hand, " Stand thoughts, and said to the man 
 forth." And he salth unto which had the witheicd hand, 
 them, *' Ri:e up, and stand forth in 
 
 the midst." And he arose and 
 stood Torth. Then said Jesus 
 unto them, 
 " What man shall there be 
 among you, that shall have one 
 sheep, and if it fall into a pit 
 on the Ssbbath day, will he 
 not lay hold on it and lift it out ? 
 How ^uch then is a man better 
 than a sheep ? 
 
 Wherefore it is lawful to do "Is it lawful to do good on "I will ask yon one thing; 
 well on the sabbath days." the Sabbath days, or to do evil ? is it lawful on the sabbath days 
 
 to save life or to kiP ? " But to do good or to do evil ? to 
 they held their peace,- save life, or to destroy it?" 
 
 Then saith he to the man, And when he had looked And looking round upon 
 "Stretch forth thine hand." round about on them with them all, he saith unto the 
 And he stretched it forth ; and anger, being grieved for the man " Stretch forth thy hand." 
 it was restored whole, like as hardness of tlieir hearts, he And he did so : and his hand 
 the other. saith unto the man, " Stretch was restored whole as the other, 
 
 forth thine hand ," And he 
 stretched it out : and his hand 
 was restored whole as the 
 other . 
 
 III. The Sabbath aetee the ckucifixion. 
 
 Matt. xxvH, 1. Mark xvi, 1. Luke xxiv, 1. John xx, 1. 
 
 Now upon the first 
 In the end of the And when the sabbath day of the week, very The first day of the 
 sabbath, as it began to was past, Mary Mag- early in the morning, "Week cometh Mary 
 dawn toward the first dalene and Mary the they came unto the Magdalene early, when 
 day of the week, came mother of James, and sepulchre, bringing the it was yet dark, unto 
 Mary Magdalene and Salome, had brought spices which they had the sepulchre, 
 the other Mary to see sweet spices, that they prepared, and certain 
 the sepulchre. might come and anoint others with them. 
 
 him. And very early 
 in the morning the first 
 day of the week, they 
 came to the sepulchre 
 at the rising of the sun. 
 
no Appendix. No III. 
 
 IV. Christ heals the infirm woman. 
 
 Luke xiii, 10 — 17. And he was teaching in one of the 
 synagogues on the sabbath. And, behold, there was a woman 
 which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed toge- 
 ther, and could in no wise hft up herself. And when Jesus saw 
 her, he called her to him, and said unto her> " Woman, thou 
 art loosed from thine infirmity." And he laid his hands on her ; 
 and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God. And 
 the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because 
 that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath day, and said unto the 
 people, " There are six days in which men ought to work : in 
 them therefore come and be healed, and not on the Sabbath 
 day." The Lord then answered him, and said, " Thou hypocrite, 
 doth oot each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his a^ss 
 from the stall, and lead him away to watering ? And ought 
 not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan 
 hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, to be loosed from this bond 
 on the sabbath day ?" And when he had said these things, all his 
 adversaries were ashamed : and all the people rejoiced for all the 
 glorious things that were done by him. 
 
 V. The Sabbath after the crucifixion. 
 
 Luke xxiii, 54 — 56. And that day was the preparation, and 
 the sabbath drew on. And the women also, which came with him 
 from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and 
 how his body was laid. And they returned, and prepared spices 
 and ointments ; and rested the sabbath day according to the 
 commandment. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Jo. V, 1 — 18. After this there was a feast of the Jews ; and Jesus 
 went up to Jerusalem. Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep 
 market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, 
 having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of impotent 
 folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the'moving of the water. 
 For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and trou- 
 bled the water : whosoever then first after the troubling of the wate 
 
Appendix. No XII, , HI 
 
 stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. And a 
 certain man was there, which had au infirmity t?iirty and eight 
 years. When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he liad been now 
 a long time in that case, he saith unto him, " Wilt thou be made 
 whole ? " The impotent man answered him, " Sir, I have no man, 
 when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool : but while 
 I am coming, another steppeth down before me. Jesus saith 
 unto him, " Eise, take up thy bed, and walk." And immedi- 
 ately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked : 
 and on the same day was the sabbath. 
 
 The Jews therefore said unto him that was cured, " It is the 
 sabbath day : it is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed." He answer- 
 ed them, " He that made me whole, the same said unto me, Take 
 up thy bed, and walk." Then asked they him, " Whatman is that 
 which said unto thee. Take up thy bed, and walk ?" And he that 
 was healed wist not who it was : for Jesus had conveyed himself 
 away, a multitude being in that place. Afterward Jesus findeth 
 him in the temple, and said unto him, " Behold, thou art made 
 whole : sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee." 
 
 The man departed, and told the Jews that it was Jesus, which 
 had made him whole. 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 work- 
 eth hitherto, and I work." Therefore the Jews souglit 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. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Jo. vii, 19 — 24. " Did not Moses give you the law, and j/e/none 
 of you keepeth the law ? Why go ye about to kill me ?" The 
 people answered and said, " Thou hast a devil ; who goeth about 
 to kill thee ?" Jesus answered and said unto them, ''1 have done one 
 work and ye all marvel. Moses therefore gave unto you circum- 
 cision : (not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers ;) and ye 
 on the sabbath day circumcise a man. If a man on the sabbath 
 
 day receive circumsision, that the law of Moses sliould not be 
 
 15 
 
112 Appendix, No III. 
 
 broken ; are ye angry at me, because I have made a man every 
 whit whole on the sabbath day ? Judge not according to the 
 appearance, but judge righteous judgment." 
 
 Till. 
 
 Jo. xix, 31. The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, 
 that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath 
 day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that 
 their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Acts xiii, 14. But when they \^aul and Sarnabas] departed 
 from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the 
 synagogue on the sabbath day, and sat down. 
 
 X. 
 
 — xiii, 43. And when the Jews were gone out of the syna- 
 gogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached 
 to them the next sabbath. 
 
 XI. 
 
 — xvi, 18. And on the Sabbath we [ Paul and Ms eomfany\ 
 went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to 
 be made ; and we sat down, and spake unto the women which 
 resorted thither. 
 
 XII. 
 
 — xviiij 4. And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, 
 and persuaded the Jews and Greeks. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 EoMANS ix, 29. And as Isaias said before, "Except the Lord 
 of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been as Sodom, and been 
 made like unto Gomorrha." 
 
 XIV. 
 CoLos. ii, 16. Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in 
 
Appendix, No ID 113 
 
 driflkj or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the 
 sabbath days, 
 
 XV. 
 
 Heb. iv, 4. For he spake in a certain place of the sabbath day 
 on this wise : " And God did rest the seventh day from all his 
 works." 
 
 XVI. 
 
 James v, 4. Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped 
 down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth ; and 
 the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of 
 the Lord of Sabaoth. 
 
 Books on the Sabbath. 
 
 Scriptural history of the Sabbath. By the Rev. Mr 
 
 Grascomb. 
 Brief Remarks on the History, Authority and Use 
 
 of the Sabbath. By Joseph John Gurney. 3rd 
 
 edition, 1832. 
 The "Christian Sabbath," by the Rev. George 
 
 Holder, A. M. London, 1825. 
 
114. 
 
 Observations on Marsh's Comparative View, By 
 the Rev. Mr Glover. 
 
 Athanasius, Homilia de Sahhato. . 
 
 HiERONYMUs, In Decalogum. 
 
 Origen, Tractatus 19 in Matthceum. 
 
 Chrysostom, Homilia 39 in Matth. xii. 
 
 Justin Martyr, Dialogus cum Tryphone. 
 
 Clemens Alexandrinus, Stromatum liber iv. 
 
 Sanderson's Cases of Conscience (Case of the 
 Sabbath.) 
 
 Paley's Moral Philosophy. 
 
 Whately's Thoughts on the Sabbath. 
 
 Bishop of Lincoln's Selections from Justin. 
 
 The British Critic, X, pag. 377, and XIII, p. 185. 
 
 A Treatise of the Sabbath day, by Dr F. White, 
 L. Bishop of Ely, Lond. 1636. 
 
 The Sabbath ; or, an Examination of the six texts 
 commonly adduced from the New Testament in 
 proof of a Christian Sabbath. By a layman, 8vo 
 London, Chapman and Hall, 136 Strand, price 
 9 shillings. 
 
 The Mosaic Sabbath ; or an Inquiry into the sup- 
 posed present obligation of the Sabbath of the 
 Fourth Commandment. By a layman, author 
 of " The Sabbath ; or an examination &c." 8vo 
 London, Chapman and Hall, 186 Strand, 1850 
 price one shilling. 
 
 PllINTED Bt S. WhITK, WeALB, OxFOUDSHIKK. 
 
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