regard unto the rules of temperance; as 1. That there be no appearance of evil; 2. That nature be not charged with any kind of excess, so far as to be hindered rather than assisted in the duties of the day; 3. That they be accompanied with gravity, and sobriety, and purity of conversation. Now, whereas these things are in the substance of them required of us in the whole course of our lives, as we intend to please God, and to come to the enjoyment of him, none ought to think an especial regard unto them on this day to be a bondage, or troublesome unto them.

"3. Labour or pains for the enjoyment of the benefit and advantage of the solemn assemblies of the church, and in them of the appointed worship of God, is so far from intrenching on the rest of this day, that it belongs unto its due observation. A mere bodily rest is no part of religious worship in itself; nor doth it belong unto the sanctification of this day, any further than as it is a means for the due performance of the other duties belonging unto it. We have no bounds under the Gospel for a Sabbath's-day's journey, provided it be for Sabbath ends. In brief, all pains or labour that our station and condition in this world, that our troubles which may befal us, or anything else, make necessary, as that without which we cannot enjoy the solemn ends and uses of this holy day of rest, are no way inconsistent with the due observation of it. It may be the lot of one man to take so much pains, and to travel so far for and in the due celebration of the Lord's Day, as if another should do the like, without his occasions and circumstances, it would be a profanation of it.

"4. Labour in works of charity or necessity, such as are to visit the sick, to relieve the poor, to help the distressed, to relieve or assist creatures ready to perish, to supply cattle with necessary food, is allowed by all, and hath been by many spoken unto.

"5. For sports and such like recreations, and their use on this day, I refer the reader to laws of sundry emperors and nations concerning them. See of Constant. Leg. Omnes, cap. de Feriis, Theodosius and Arcadius, ibid., and of Leo and Authemius in the same place of the Code; of Charles the Great, Capitular. lib. 1, cap. 81, lib. 5, cap. 188. The sum of them all is contained in that exhortation which Ephrem Syrus expresseth in his Serm. de Diebus Festis. 'Festivitates Dominicas honorare studiose contendite, celebrantes eas non panegyrice, sed divine; non mundane, sed spiritualiter; non instar Gentilium, sed Christianorum. Quare non portarum frontes coronemus ; non choreas ducamus, non chorum exornemus ; non tibiis et citharis auditum effæminemus, non mollibus vestibus induamur, nec cingulis undique auro radiantibus cingamur; non comessationibus et ebrietatibus dediti simus, verum ista relinquamus eis quorum Deus venter est, et gloria in confusione justorum.' "For private duties, both personal and domestic, they are either antecedent or consequent unto the solemn public worship, as usually for time it is celebrated amongst us. These consisting in the known religious exercises of prayer, reading the Scripture, meditation, family instructions from the advantage of the public ordinances,

they are to be recommended unto every one's conscience, ability, and opportunity, as they shall find strength and assistance for them.' (Exerc. 6, § 19.)

These remarks, and the yet stronger passage formerly quoted (ii. 15.) against loading worshippers with Sabbath performances beyond their strength, gave offence to several of Owen's brethren; one of whom-John Eliot, the apostle of the American Indians -wrote him an expostulatory letter. In his reply, which is published by Cotton Mather in his Life of Eliot, p. 27 (Lond. 1694), the following explanation is given :-"As to what concerns the natural strength of man, either I was under some mistake in my expression, or you seem to be so in your apprehension. I never thought, and I have not said, that the continuance of the Sabbath is to be commensurate to the natural strength of man, but only that it is an allowable mean of men's continuance in Sabbath duties; which, I suppose, you will not deny, lest you should cast the consciences of professors into inextricable difficulties. When first I engaged in that work, I intended not to have spoken one word about the practical observation of the day, but only to have endeavoured the revival of a truth, which at present is despised among us, and strenuously opposed by sundry Divines of the United Provinces, who call the doctrine of the Sabbath Figmentum Anglicanum. On the desire of some learned men in these parts, it was, that I undertook the vindication of it. Having now discharged the debt which in this matter I owed to the truth, and to the Church of God, though not as I ought, yet with such a composition as, I hope, through the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, might find acceptance with God, and with his saints, I suppose I shall not again engage on that subject." He adds in touching language:-"I suppose there is scarce any one alive in the world, who hath more reproaches cast upon him than I have; though hitherto God has been pleased, in some measure, to support my spirit under them. I still relieved myself by this, that my poor endeavours have found acceptance with the Churches of Christ. But my holy, wise, and gracious Father sees it needful to try me in this matter also; and what I have received from you, which, it may be, contains not your sense alone, hath printed deeper, and left a greater impression on my mind, than all the virulent revilings and false accusations I have met with from my professed adversaries. I do acknowledge to you, that I have a dry and barren spirit, and I do heartily beg your prayers, that the Holy One would, notwithstanding all my sinful provocations, water me from above: but that I should now be apprehended to have given a wound to holiness in the churches, is one of the saddest frowns in the cloudy brows of Divine Providence. The doctrine of the Sabbath, I have asserted, though not as it ought yet as well as I could; the observation of it in holy duties to the utmost of the strength for them, which God shall be pleased to give us, I have pleaded for; the necessity also of a serious preparation for it, in sundry previous duties, I have declared. But now to meet with severe expressions—it may be, 'tis the will of God, that

vigour should hereby be given to my former discouragements, and that there is a call in it to cease from these kinds of labours."

Cotton Mather says he publishes this letter, "that it may contribute unto the world's good reception and perusal of a golden book on the Sabbath of God, written by one of the most eminent persons which the English nation has been adorned with." (P. 30.)

160. BAXTER, RICHARD, a very eminent Nonconformist divine (died 1691).-Practical Works; with a Life of the Author, and a Critical Examination of his Writings, by the Rev. William Orme. Lond. 1830. 23 vols. 8vo.

In vol. xiii., pp. 363-516, is a treatise published by Baxter in 1671, entitled "The Divine appointment of the Lord's Day proved, as a separated day for holy worship, especially in the Church assemblies; and consequently the cessation of the Seventh-day Sabbath."

In spite of the haste with which this appears to have been written, it has always been justly esteemed, except by the Seventh-day Baptists and the Puritans, as one of the most valuable defences of the Christian Sabbath as a divine institution. Its origin and purpose are thus made known in the Preface :-

"Reader, if thou think this Treatise both superfluous and defective, when so many larger have better done the work already, I shall not at all gainsay the latter, nor much the former. The reason of my writing it was the necessity and request of some very upright, godly persons, who are lately fallen into doubt or error, in point of the Sabbath-day; conceiving, that because the Fourth Commandment was written in stone, it is wholly unchangeable, and consequently the Seventh-day Sabbath in force, and that the Lord's Day is not a day separated by God to holy worship. I knew that there was enough written on this subject long ago; But, 1. Much of it is in Latin. 2. Some writings which prove the abrogation of the Jewish Sabbath, do withal treat so loosely of the Lord's Day, as that they require a confutation in the latter, as well as a commendation for the former. 3. Some are so large, that the persons that I write for will hardly be brought to read them. 4. Most go upon those grounds which I take to be less clear; and build so much more than I can do on the Fourth Commandment and on many passages of the Old Testament, and plead so much for the old sabbatical notion and rest, that I fear this is the chief occasion of many people's errors; who when they find themselves in a wood of difficulties, and nothing plain and convincing that is pleaded with them, do therefore think it safest to stick to the old Jewish Sabbath. The friends and acquaintance of some of these persons importuning me to take the plainest and nearest way to satisfy such honest doubters, I have here done it according to my judgment: not contending against any that go another way to work, but thinking myself that this is very clear and satisfactory; viz., to prove, 1. That Christ

did commission his apostles to teach us all things which he commanded, and to settle orders in his Church. 2. And that he gave them his Spirit to enable them to do all this infallibly, by bringing all his words to their remembrance, and by leading them into all truth. 3. And that his apostles by this Spirit did de facto separate the Lord's Day for holy worship, especially in church-assemblies, and declared the cessation of the Jewish Sabbaths. 4. And that as this change had the very same author as the holy Scriptures (the Holy Ghost in the Apostles), so that fact hath the same kind of proof, that we have of the canon and the integrity and uncorruptness of the particular Scripture-books and texts: and that, if so much Scripture as mentioneth the keeping of the Lord's Day, expounded by the consent and practice of the universal Church from the days of the apostles (all keeping this day as holy, without the dissent of any one sect, or single person, that I remember to have read of), I say, if history will not fully prove the point of fact, that this day was kept in the apostles' times, and consequently by their appointment, then the same proof will not serve to evince that any text of Scripture is canonical, and uncorrupted; nor can we think that any thing in the world, that is past, can have historical proof. "I have been put to say something particularly out of antiquity for this evidence of the fact, because it is that which I lay the greatest stress upon. But I have not done it so largely as might be done: 1. Because I would not lose the unlearned reader in a wood of history, nor overwhelm him instead of edifying him. 2. Because it is done already in Latin by Dr Young in his Dies Dominica (under the name of Theophilus Loncardiensis); which I take to be the most moderate, sound, and strong Treatise on this subject that I have seen though Mr Cawdrey and Palmer (jointly) have done well, and at greater length; and Mr Eaton, Mr Shepard, Dr Bound, Walæus, Rivet, and my dear friend Mr George Abbot, against Broad, have said very much and in their way, Dr White, Dr Heylin, Bishop Ironside, Mr Brerewood, &c. 3. I chose most of the same citations which Dr Heylin himself produceth, because he being the man that I am most put to defend myself against, his concessions are my advantage. 4. And if I had been willing, I could not have been so full in this as the subject will bespeak, because I have almost eleven years been separated from my library, and long from the neighbourhood of any one's else.

"I much pity and wonder at those godly men, who are so much for stretching the words of Scripture, to a sense that other men cannot find in them, as that in the word graven images in the Second Commandment, they can find all set forms of prayer, all composed studied sermons, and all things about worship of man's invention to be images or idolatry; and yet they cannot find the abrogation of the Jewish Sabbath in the express words of Col. ii. 16, nor the other texts which I have cited; nor can they find the institution of the Lord's Day in all the texts and evidences produced for it. But though Satan may somewhat disturb our concord, and tempt some men's charity to remissness, by these differences, he shall never

keep them out of heaven, who worship God through Christ, by the Spirit, even in spirit and truth. Nor shall he, I hope, ever draw me to think such holy persons as herein differ from me, to be worse than myself, though I think them in this to be unhappily mistaken : much less to approve of their own separation from others, or of other men's condemning them as heretics, and inflicting severities upon them for these their opinions' sake." (Vol. xiii. pp. 365-7.)

After maintaining in seven chapters the propositions laid down in the Preface, he treats in chap. 8 of "the beginning of the Lord's Day;" in chap. 9, of "the manner in which it should be kept or used;" and in chap. 10, of "how it should not be spent, or what is unlawful on it" (dancing, and plays, and wakes, and other pastimes, such as had been practised under the sanction of the Book of Sports, being especially condemned). Chap. 11 is entitled, "What things should not be scrupled as unlawful on the Lord's day;" chap. 12, "Of what importance the due observation of the Lord's Day is ;" and chap. 13, "What other Church-Festivals or separated days are lawful." Lastly comes "An Appendix for further confirmation of God's own separation of the Lord's Day, and disproving the continuation of the Jewish Seventh-day Sabbath."

The doctrine of Baxter, that no part whatever of the law promulgated to the Jews obliges Christians, has been quoted above, i. 244. On this principle he argues in the treatise under our notice, though of course admitting that the law of nature, of which the Decalogue includes so much, is universally and perpetually binding. How far the Fourth Commandment is moral is considered in pp. 426-7, 501, 505.

Like Grotius, he thinks that bodily rest was not prescribed at the creation when the seventh day was blessed and sanctified, but only to the Jews by Moses; and that though it was a primary part of their religious observation of the Sabbath, the Lord's Day on the other hand "is appointed but as a seasonable time subservient

* It is in this chapter, p. 444, that Baxter has recorded his oftenquoted reminiscences of the offensive manner in which the Sunday sports were conducted in the time of Charles I. They confirm to some extent the following passage in Southey's Book of the Church: "The motives for the King's Declaration were unobjectionably good; but the just liberty which in happier times, and under proper parochial discipline, would have been in all respects useful, proved injurious in the then distempered state of public feeling. It displeased the well-intentioned part of the Calvinised clergy, and it was abused in officious triumph by those who were glad of an opportunity for insulting the professors of a sour and dismal morality." (Chap. xvii., p. 447, 4th edit.)

In another work he says: "So much of Moses's laws as are part of the law of nature, or of any positive law of Christ, or of the civil law of any state, are binding as they are such natural, Christian, or civil laws. But not one of them as Mosaical; though the Mosaical law is of great use to help us to understand the law of nature in many particular instances in which it is somewhat difficult to us." (Christian Directory, Part IV., chap. xix.; vol. vi. p. 322.)