vice; and that the bulk of mankind would soon degenerate into mere savages and barbarians, if there were not stated days to call them off from the common business of life, to attend to the all-important business of securing their salvation. As well may we expect law and order to maintain their influence in the land, without tribunals to declare, and a magistracy to execute the law, as to expect that religion will flourish or even exist, without a stated public celebration of its services and ordinances.

2. Again; the moral and religious instruction gained by an habitual attendance on public worship, is beyond measure valuable, especially to those who have small opportunities of gaining instruction elsewhere. To this more than to any other cause it is owing, that, in Christian countries, some degree of intelligence is diffused among all orders of men. No man born in a Christian country needs to live and die without adequate instruction in whatever pertains to virtue and godliness.

3. Moreover, the habitual assembling of men of every variety of rank, fortune, and education, in the same edifice, to join in a common religious service, has a sensible tendency to unite mankind in the bonds of a common fellowship, to cherish and enlarge the generous affections, and, by contemplating their common relation to the Governor of all things, to remind them of the natural equality of the human species, and thereby to promote humility and condescension in the more wealthy, the more learned, and the more honorable; and to inspire the humbler ranks with a sense of their rights and with some degree of self-respect. Office, birth, knowledge, wealth, and other distinctions known and acknowledged among men, are recognised by Scripture ; and corresponding duties are enjoined on those who enjoy these advantages and honors. We are to render their dues to all; tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor.*

These distinctions, too, are sanctioned by Divine Providence as a part of the system of human affairs; no community has existed without them, they seem inevitable; and, if accompanied by a proper spirit, are conducive to the welfare of

* Rom. xiii. 7; Matt. xxii. 21.

mankind. But they are usually carried too far, and valued too much, by those who enjoy them; and the spirit, which they tend to nourish, estranges and alienates brethren of the same great family from each other, by causing discontent, distrust, jealousy, and envy. It is well, indeed, if they do not rouse the fiercer passions of hatred, malice, and revenge. The magistrate feels that he represents the state, and infers from thence, that the official dignity, with which his person is clothed, must not be defiled by too much intercourse with the common people. Pride of birth must not be soiled by the touch of any thing homebred and ignoble. Learning cannot condescend to hold communion with ignorance, and wealth looks down with insolence upon the poor, the unfortunate, and the depressed. They move in distinct and exclusive circles, studiously assorted on the ground of these distinctions, and their almost inevitable effect is, to impair, if not to destroy the good feeling which ought to unite all mankind by the bonds of a mutual sympathy and interest. If, at any time, the poor man is seen at the tribunal of the magistrate, it is probably because he is dragged there to answer to the suit or prosecution of some rich and fortunate oppressor. If he visits the palaces of aristocratic pride, it is not to partake of their enjoyments, these are reserved for guests made of like clay with their proprietors.

"Materiâ nostrâ constare, paribusque elementis."*

If he enters the mansions of the rich and the halls of the learned, he still finds that he is not permitted to participate in the treasures which they contain.

4. The church is the only place, in which the various classes of mankind meet each other on any thing like equal terms. In the house of God, the exclusive spirit, nourished by the artificial distinctions of human pride and power, stands rebuked before the immeasurable distance, by which the highest of mortals is separated from the throne of the Almighty. Men are addressed there, not according to the wealth they have acquired, or the other distinctions by which they are known, but as alike the sinful children of a common parent, having similar

wants and desires, and alike standing in need of the great salvation. Men are there reminded, most impressively, of the brief continuance and comparative insignificance of the distinctions, which they so earnestly covet, and so inordinately prize. The solemn lesson is there forced upon their minds, that, whatever accidental distinctions they may win, they have all commenced life, and must all finish it, on the same terms. It is emphatically there, that, as the wisest of men says, "the rich and the poor meet together, the Lord is the Maker of them all."*

By thus habitually joining in the stated solemnities of a common religious service, the pride of purse, of knowledge, of station, of ancestry, and of personal accomplishments, is laid in the dust of humiliation before God; the estrangement and alienation in which the different classes of mankind are accustomed to live, are diminished; they come to look upon each other with more kindly feelings; and the decaying sympathies of a common origin and a common destiny, and the same ultimate hopes and prospects beyond the grave, are revived, strengthened, and saved from extinction. It does not come within the author's province, to advert to the peculiar spiritual blessings, which flow from an attendance on public worship, as his aim is to treat of moral philosophy distinct from theology. To this last science, the part of Divine worship, which consists in the administration of the sacraments, seems exclusively to belong.

CHAPTER IV.

THE OBSERVANCE OF SUNDAY.

THE important moral influences of the private and public worship of God, make the observance of Sunday a matter of great moment in the view of the moral philosopher. In treating this part of the subject, I shall, 1. Review the early history of the Jewish Sabbath, 2. Inquire whether the institution known

* Proverbs xxii. 2.

originally by the name of the Sabbath, and in later times, by the name of Sunday, was designed, save the mere change of the day, to be the same, and to be of perpetual obligation. 3. Inquire what are the duties which constitute a suitable observance of Sunday.

1. It is not difficult to trace the history of the Jewish Sabbath, as most of it is contained in the Old and New Testaments. The sacred historian, after recounting the several acts of creation on six successive days, proceeds, "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And, on the seventh day, God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it."* Blessing and sanctification, as applied to a day, can have no other meaning, than that the day was to be made instrumental in conferring blessings, and was to be appropriated to sacred purposes; and the rest, ascribed to the Almighty, can intend no more than that he then completed the work of creation.

No sooner was this glorious work accomplished, a work which Infinite Wisdom pronounced very good, than the Almighty Author decreed that the seventh day, the first that had witnessed the fair and perfect creation, should be consecrated to his service, and become a peculiar source of blessings. The Sabbath was set apart at the creation; "it was, therefore, made for man,"† that is, for mankind universally, and not for the Hebrews only.

The patriarchs led the Nomadic life, and the patriarchal history is very brief;-still, it is not without traces that they were mindful to keep the Sabbath day holy. The passages referred to, show, that the week was, with them, a well-known and familiar way of computing time. Again, it is said, § that Abraham obeyed the voice of the Lord, and kept his charge, his commandments, his statutes, and his laws. It is not easy to believe that these did not include the observance of the Sabbath. The universality of the week, can only be accounted for, from the Sabbath having been set apart at the creation, and observed by the

Gen. ii. 1-3.

Gen. viii. 10, 12; xxix. 27 - 28.

+ Mark ii. 27.

§ Gen. xxvi. 5.

patriarchs, from whom all the nations of the earth are descended. "We find from time immemorial," says the learned Goguet, "the use of this period among all nations, and without any variation in the form of it. The Israelites, Assyrians, Egyptians, Indians, Arabians, and in a word, all the nations of the east, have, in all ages, made use of a week of seven days." Another author of equal distinction says, "The period of seven days, by far the most permanent division of time, and the most ancient monument of astronomical knowledge, was used by the Brahmins in India with the same denominations employed by us, and was alike found in the calendars of the Jews, Egyptians, Arabs, and Assyrians; it has survived the fall of empires, and has existed among all successive generations, a proof of their common origin.Ӡ

During the long residence of the Hebrews in Egypt, in a state of rigorous servitude, it may well be supposed that the Sabbath was not much observed, and well-nigh forgotten. Still, after their deliverance from Egypt, the Sabbath was observed by them, before their arrival at Mount Sinai, and Moses evidently refers to it as an institution rather neglected by them, than unknown to them. In the Fourth Commandment, the term Sabbath is used without explanation as one well known. Moreover, when it is said, at the end of this commandment, that the Lord blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, the reference seems most manifestly to be to the original setting apart of the same day at the end of the creation. My purpose does not require me to trace the history of the Jewish Sabbath any further.

2. Was the institution, known originally by the name of the Sabbath, and in later times by the name of Sunday, designed, save the mere change of the day, to be the same, and to be of perpetual obligation? A brief discussion and comparison will set this part of the subject in a very clear light. A distinction, which the sacred writers have been at pains to mark and insist on, is drawn between the great body of the Mosaic law and the

Mrs. Somerville, Mechanism of the Heavens, Prel. Dis. p. 85. See also Dr. Dwight on the Fourth Commandment, in his Theology, and Mr. Jay's "Prize Essay," pp. 10-13.

Exodus xvi.