but have rather been such fathers as the heathen god Saturn, or as some savages who eat or sell their own children. However, it was not amiss to give this title to every prince who desired it, since it might serve to remind him, if not of what he was, yet of what he ought to have been.

Our Saviour calls his disciples his children, and the apostles in their epistles represent themselves as spiritual fathers, and the Christians, whom they had converted and instructed, as their children. Such was the light in which they desired to appear, and such the station in which they chose to act, and such the authority which they claimed and exercised; not temporal authority, government, and dominion, but the gentlest of all powers, exercised with affectionate tenderness. They would not accept even the submission and the obedience of Christians, unless it were accompanied with love, and proceeding from a willing mind.

The sixth commandment is against murder. The Gospel hath secured and guarded this law, by forbidding all wrath and malice, hatred and revenge-all abusive and reviling language, as so many incentives to violence and to bloodshed.

The next commandment is against adultery, and hath been extended by the precepts of Christianity, so as to forbid all impurities, and to discourage and dissuade polygamy, and divorce also, except in the case of adultery, or of crimes equally heinous and insupportable.

The eighth commandment forbids theft and robbery. To this law may be referred all those precepts which require of us to do no injury to our neighbour, nor to deprive him of his fortune, his reputation, his health, his happiness, and his peace of mind; but, on the contrary, to do him all the services that lie in our power, and that he can equitably expect and desire from us.

The ninth commandment, against bearing false witness, may justly be supposed to require an abhorrence of lying, deceiving, and slandering, and an inviolable regard to truth, sincerity, impartiality, fidelity, justice, and equity.

The last commandment, which forbids us to covet the things of our neighbour, hath been the subject of this discourse, and no more needs to be added concerning it.

These ten commandments are to be divided into two partsinto those of the first, and those of the second, table-into our duty to God, and our duty to man. The first is comprised in this one law, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart;" the second is reducible to this, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." And whosoever duly observes these

two great commandments cannot easily be deficient in per forming his duty to himself.

The first of these commandments, or the love of God, is the law of piety; the second, or the love of man, is the law of charity. He, therefore, who, in any point, deliberately and habitually offends against his duty to God, breaks the whole law of piety; and he who, in the same manner, offends in any instance against his neighbour, breaks the whole law of charity. And in this sense St. James may be understood; when speaking of the duty of man to man, he says, "whosoever breaks one of these commandments, though he should observe the rest, violates the whole law," namely, the law of benevolence and charity.

This love of God and of our neighbour is neither an impetuous and blind passion, nor a mere speculation; but a good disposition, produced and cultivated by reason, strengthened by faith, and verified by our actions. To love God, is to keep his commandments; and to love men, is to do them all the service and all the good that we can. Let us entreat the Giver of every good gift, that "he would have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep these laws."

THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH.

BY THE RIGHT REV. ZACHARY PEARCE, D.D., LORD BISHOP OF ROCHESTER.

GENESIS ii. 3.

And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

THESE words are the conclusion of Moses's history of the creation, written for the instruction of his countrymen the Jews; and it is observable, that in some of the following chapters he gives a very short account of what passed in the world before the flood, and for some small time after it. The thirst for historical knowledge was not so strong in Moses's days as it is in ours; and, perhaps, the little good use that is made of it at present, for correcting what is amiss by the lessons which former ages read to us, is what justifies the incurious temper of those ancients rather than the unavailing curiosity of us moderns. But as the historian Moses wrote for his countrymen the Jews, he had his principal end always in view, which was to train them up to true religion, and form them into a government, upon the plan of those laws which he had given them by the divine direction. He, therefore, singled out chiefly such circumstances of history as might be of use to them for these purposes. He showed them how God punished the disobedience of our first parents for breaking even one positive law-one of such a nature as a great part of those were of which he had given them for the trial of their obedience to God. He showed them, in that part of his history which described the deluge, that God might be provoked by the sins of mankind, not only to punish one man and one woman, but all the nations of the earth, when they had universally corrupted their ways; from whence the Jewish people might learn that they, as a nation, if a sinful nation, were not to hope for impunity, since the whole world had been made a just sacrifice to divine vengeance.

Besides, he had given to the Jews a law about the observation of the Sabbath, not without some circumstances attending

it which seemed, perhaps, full of great strictness and severity. He did well, therefore, notwithstanding his history takes so little notice of the religion prevailing before the flood, to mention with any especial regard the law which God gave to mankind at the very beginning, about their keeping the seventh day as a day blessed and sanctified. The law is that which I have read to you in my text, and which I propose to make the subject of my ensuing discourse.

Because the observance of every seventh day for a holy one is so much neglected by many among us; and because some, who are not wholly negligent of this part of their duty, do yet seem not to be sufficiently informed upon what foundation it stands, whether upon the laws of their country only, or merely upon the practice of the Christian Church; or whether it be, as it certainly is, of a higher original—of divine appointment: for the benefit of such as these I shall endeavour to lay before you the foundation upon which the Sabbath in general is built, and the Christian Sabbath in particular. For this purpose be it first considered, that the setting apart some portion of our time for praising God on account of his excellent greatness and goodness; for contemplating him in his works, and, as far as we can, in his nature; for considering the relation in which we stand to him as creatures, and what we owe to him on that account: be it considered, I say, that this is a moral duty, is one of a fixed and unalterable nature. Reason would have taught men this lesson, if revelation had directed nothing in the case; because it is only to pay the homage that is due to our Creator-it is only to make an acknowledgment of his right of dominion over us. But, secondly

How much of our time ought to be set apart for this purpose, is what reason did not point out to us; in this respect it, was left at its liberty, at more liberty than it was likely most men would make a right use of; and, therefore, we find God, as mentioned in my text, blessing the seventh day, and sanctifying it, because that on the seventh day he had rested from all his work of creation—that is, he then commanded that men should sanctify, and devote as sacred, one seventh part of their time, a seventh day after six spent in labour, because his work of creation being finished in six days, as Moses represents it in compliance to our human notions, he then rested from all his work, or, to speak more suitably to the divine power, he then ceased to create, his whole design being fully accomplished. This command, therefore, seems, in the first and most obvious meaning of it, to be an appointment of the portion of our time which we are to consecrate for this purpose. We may reasonably

suppose that some particular day likewise was early named and set out for the Sabbath; but if this day was changed afterwards by God's direction, or with his approbation, as I shall show to be probable in the sequel of this discourse, then it seems plain that the signifying of the particular day was not an essential circumstance of the original law about the Sabbath, and therefore that the law was not dispensed with, or set aside by any change made afterwards from one day to another day of the week.

However, on a view of this command in my text, two things appear very plain and obvious; the one, that this is the very first law which God gave to mankind, and, therefore, in right of eldership, it may be supposed to have a double portion of blessings entailed upon it; the other, that this law was given to Adam and Eve in memory of the creation, and therefore was given to their descendants likewise, and is of universal obligation upon mankind.

Against this nothing can be objected, unless, what has been supposed by some, that the law of the Sabbath was designed for the Jews only; and that Moses, writing for their information, to whom he had given a particular law about it, placed this command here immediately after the history of the creation by way of prolepsis, or of anticipating, that is, of ante-dating the command, that it might stand in a more distinguished and conspicuous place. But this supposition has no regard to the credit of the sacred historian, for the order of facts is a part of their truth; they must be true in place as well as in nature. And it seems confuted by some footsteps, which we find of the counting time by seven days, long before the Jews were a nation. Thus Noah, when the flood was abating, is said to have stayed seven days, and then to have sent forth a dove out of the ark; and to have stayed other seven days, and then to have sent forth another.

Thus the marriages and the funerals of the patriarchs after the flood are mentioned as solemnized during seven days. Now there is no account that can so probably be given for their parcelling out time, and measuring it thus by seven and seven days, as by supposing that one day in seven was then appropriated, and that naturally introduced the distinction of weeks among them.

It seems confuted, likewise, by the manner in which Moses introduces the fourth commandment: "Remember (says he) the Sabbath day to keep it holy;" where, by calling it to their remembrance, he intimates that it was known to be their duty. And accordingly we find, that soon after the Israelites were entered into the wilderness, and before God had given them the