practices made privately to the authors of them will sometimes have the desired effect. If, however, this should fail, you will then naturally have recourse in the first place to your churchwardens for their co-operation and assistance; and their exertions in the zealous execution of their office have, I know, been frequently attended with success. But if still higher authority be found necessary, application must be made to the magistrates of the district in which your parish is situated, for their concurrence and support. Our ancestors have, as you well know, with no less wisdom than piety, made the religious observance of the Sunday a part of the law of the land, and have protected it by various statutes, which strictly prohibit, under certain penalties, the exercise of all worldly callings and occupations on that day; works of necessity and charity only excepted. And there are many excellent magistrates, both in the metropolis and in several other parts of this diocese, who will, I know, on your suggestion, be perfectly ready to enforce the due execution of these laws, and exert themselves with zeal and with spirit in the suppression of those enormities which have been here pointed out. You will, I am sure, agree with me in thinking, that if these and similar profanations of the christian Sabbath are suffered to gain ground and spread without controul, they would quickly counteract all the beneficial purposes of that divine institution, and produce a most fatal effect on the principles and morals of the people. It is, therefore, highly necessary to check these infringements of the ordinances of Heaven; and, at this moment more particularly, when we have peculiar need of the protection of the Almighty, it becomes, more than ever, our indispensable duty to resist with vigour every insult that is offered to Him and his religion, and to guard that day which is appropriated to his service, and which He claims as his own, from those daring encroachments which worldly men are continually making upon it, in defiance of common decency, and the most positive laws, both human and divine. This kingdom has, from the period of the Reformation to this time, been distinguished among among the nations of the christian world, for the solemnity, the decency, and the propriety with which the Lord's day has been here usually observed. It is a distinction which does us credit, and is altogether worthy of the first protestant church in Europe. I am therefore very seriously anxious that we should maintain inviolate this glorious pre-eminence; being perfectly convinced that the sacred day which both God and man have set apart for religious worship and rest, is the grand bulwark of christianity; and, that on the due application of it, to those important purposes, depends in a great measure the very of that religion in these realms. I am, existence Your affectionate brother, B. LONDON. |