the aid of the Holy Spirit, to trace on our own heart the delineation of the Christian character

thence, that it must bind all his posterity, they are, of course, at least equally, bound by the (recorded) precept to Noah relative to abstinence from blood. And if they are satisfied

in their own minds that these are commands obligatory on them, they are right in following the dictates of their own conscience in complying with them, provided they do not (contrary to St. Paul's express injunction, Rom. xiv. 2—6) presume to judge their brethren who think differently. But there surely is ground of complaint against those who, while they acknowledge a divine command as extending to themselves, yet do not obey it as it was given, but presume to alter it on the authority of tradition. And such is the case in respect of the Sabbath: no Christians in the present age do keep holy the seventh day, but instead of it, the first day of the week, in commemoration of our Lord's resurrection. They say that the day has been changed under the gospeldispensation by what authority? That of the Church? And has the Church power to alter the express commands of God? Then let us turn papists at once, and admit that, though Christ gave the cup to his disciples, saying, "Drink ye all of this," the Church has a right to deny the cup to the Laity! Or are we to rest on tradition? Supposing we had a right to set up tradition against express command, there is not even a tradition to the purpose. There is, indeed, abundant proof that the early Christians did observe the Lord's day, as a religious festival, even from the very resurrection; but so far from substituting this for the Jewish Sabbath, such of them as were Jews, continued, themselves,

which the Scriptures present, and to conform all our actions, and words, and thoughts, to that

to observe the whole Jewish law (Acts xxi. 20-27); while to the Gentile converts they said, "Let no man judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days: which are a shadow of things to come: but the body is Christ."

But I have heard it said, that God commanded all men to observe as a Sabbath, one day in seven, it matters not which. Where is such a precept to be found? The injunction is always to observe not a seventh day, but "the seventh day," on the which "God rested from all his work that He had made." Surely we are not to reason in this manner; "the ancient Sabbath was one day in seven; the Lord's day is one day in seven; therefore the Lord's day is the ancient Sabbath!" Nor is the difference between us and the Jews a difference of reckoning, which would be a matter of no importance. Our computation is the same as their's; they keep holy the seventh day, as the seventh day, in commemoration of the creation; we, the first day of the week, as the first, to commemorate our Lord's resurrection on the day after the Sabbath.

But, say some, what does it signify whether this day, or that, be set apart as the Sabbath, provided we obey the divine injunction to observe a Sabbath? So thought " Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin," when he instituted a feast unto the Lord on the 15th day of the tenth month, even "the day that he had devised of his own heart." So thought, perhaps, the Samaritans, when they built a temple on Mount Gerizim; and so thought Naaman, when

character, our heavenly Teacher will enable us to "have a right judgment in all things;" and we

he proposed to "wash in the rivers of Damascus and be clean," instead of Jordan. One river is as good as another; one mountain as good as another; one day as good as another ;-except when there is a divine command which specifies one; and then our business is, not to alter or to question a divine command, but to consider whether it extends to us, and if it does, to obey it.

I have dwelt thus earnestly on the fallacious arguments employed to enforce the observance of the Lord's day, for reasons which have been detailed in the first of these Essays. A great proportion probably of the errors which are afloat in the world, owe their origin to the pernicious practice of calling in wrong principles to the support of what is right; when false premises have been thus hastily admitted for the sake of the conclusion, they may afterwards (like the Saxons invited by the Britons) cause indefinite mischief.

And, after all, what need is there to bring ourselves under the yoke of the Mosaic law, for the sake of enforcing the observance of the Lord's day, which is not even part of that law? The first day of the week is set apart by all Christian Churches, as a religious festival in celebration of Christ's resurrection, agreeably to the practice of the Apostles and other early Christians. The custom of the primitive Church would not, indeed, alone make this an imperative duty; since the love-feasts and some other ancient practices are now, by the rightful authority of the Church, disused; but their early custom gives additional solemnity to an observance that has the sanction of the Church-a sanction

shall be "led by the Spirit" of Christ to follow his steps, and to "purify ourselves even as He is pure;" that "when He shall appear, we may be made like unto Him, and may behold him as He is."

which would, even of itself, be sufficient. For when our Lord "appointed to his Apostles a kingdom," and declared that whatsoever they should bind on earth, should be bound in heaven," promising also to be "with them even unto the end of the world," He must surely have conferred on his Church a permanent "power to ordain rites and ceremonies," and to institute and abrogate religious festivals, "provided nothing be done contrary to God's word;" and must have given the ratification of his authority to what should be thus ordained. For if his expressions have not this extent, what do they mean?-See Bishop Sanderson's Cases of Conscience, Case of the Sabbath Day: and Paley's Moral Philosophy.

ESSAY VI.

ON IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS.

THE importance of obtaining correct, and avoiding erroneous notions, respecting any point of doctrine, is not always to be measured by the intrinsic importance of the doctrine itself, or by the practical consequences immediately resulting from this or that view of it. No error can be considered as harmless and insignificant, which tends to put a stumbling-block in the way of believers in the Gospel, and to afford to infidels or heretics the advantage of a plausible objection against its truths. The genuine and fundamental doctrines of Christianity, may become liable to be scoffed at by some, and dreaded or disregarded by others, from their supposed connexion with such as are in fact no part of the gospel-revelation. It then becomes a matter of importance to