which we may as well resort as to the fourth precept for it." (P. 60.)

104. BRAMHALL, JOHN, D.D., Archbishop of Armagh (died 1663). The Controversies about the Sabbath and the Lord's Day, with their respective Obligations, clearly, succinctly, and impartially stated, discussed, and determined. (In his Works, pp. 907-938. Dub-.. lin, 1677, fol.)

The treatise so entitled by his editor was probably written about 1641, though apparently not published till after his death. It will be found in the last edition of his Works, vol. v. pp. 3-86, Oxf. 1845, 8vo.

He declares himself unable to find satisfactory evidence of a primeval Sabbath; rejects the notion of the identity of the Sabbath with the Lord's Day; but holds that the latter was observed as a day of worship by the apostles, whose example he thinks equal to a law binding the Christian Church for ever. He, however, boggles not at the name of Sabbath applied to the Lord's Day, so we understand it rightly of an analogical sabbath." (P. 908.) And elsewhere he observes: "The law of nature comprehended in the Fourth Commandment saith, Thou shalt set apart a time of solemn rest for the public service of God. The evangelical law saith, This time shall be upon the first day of the week, and shall be spent in such and such holy exercise. The just laws of our lawful superiors, civil and ecclesiastical, do go yet farther as to the place and duration of time, and manner of sanctification. He who shall neglect this duty, at this time, in this place, after this manner, is not only a transgressor of human law, but of Divine law; of the evangelical law, and of the law of nature comprehended in the Fourth Commandment." (P. 932.)

105. BERNARD, RICHARD, Rector of Batcomb.—A Threefold Treatise of the Sabbath; distinctly divided into the Patriarchal, Mosaical, and Christian Sabbaths for the better clearing and manifestation of the Truth in this Controversy concerning the Weekly Sabbath. Lond. 1641. 4to. Pp. 235.

In Part First the author advocates at great length the institution of the Sabbath at the creation, in opposition to those who think Gen. ii. 3 either proleptical, or only an intimation that the seventh day was then destined to be sanctified to the Jews. He adduces the names of some Jewish doctors who propound his doctrine; also Luther, Zuinglius, Calvin, Peter Martyr, Bullinger, Zanchius, Ursinus, Pareus, Mercerus, Perkins, Willet, Amesius, "and very many more which might be named, holding the insti

tution of the Sabbath in Gen. ii. 3." And he accordingly contends that it was observed by God's people before the Law given at Mount Sinai."

In Part II. he discusses minutely the Fourth Commandment, in which (it is argued) no certain seventh day is determinately set down; but the commandment is, "Remember the seventh day,” to wit, what day soever, "to keep it holy:" so that "the seventh day from the creation is not of the substance of the commandment. This," he adds, "was for an admittance of the changeableness of the day; for this commandment being affirmative, and propounded in general terms, maketh it applicative to this or that day; to this while it remaineth, and to that which may come in the room of it when this is changed and taken away. As thus: 'Honour the king; to wit, whosoever is king. If Saul be king, honour him; when he is dead, and David be king, honour him.' So is it in this commandment, Keep holy the Sabbath-day:' while the seventh day from the creation is the Sabbath, keep it holy; if it be changed, and the first day of the week be the Sabbath, then keep it holy. God foreseeing it necessary that the seventh day from the creation was to be changed, he propounded the law so as to make the day alterable, as being for the time by way of application belonging unto the commandment, but not of the substance; no more than Saul was of the substance of this commandment, 'Honour the king.' If this had been, or were, well pondered, the controversy of the Sabbath had been prevented, and should cease now to trouble the Church." (P. 66.)

But what need was there, I would ask, for this supposed careful choice of words in expressing the commandment? Could not the Supreme Lawgiver have just as easily altered the day when and how he pleased, although the original precept had been, "Remember the seventh day of the week, to keep it holy"?

With Calvin, Bernard understands the words, "Six days shalt thou labour," to be permissive only, "not preceptive, but as they have respect to the Sabbath-day, for the better observing of it when we neglect not our business on the six days, nor defer anything thereof unto the seventh day." (P. 74.)

Section XIX., "Of the works which might be done on the Sabbath," is concluded thus:

"And lastly, besides all these works of piety, and tending to piety, of necessity and charity, there be deeds of indifferency lawful; as these: To walk in the fields, as Christ with his apostles and others did (Matt. xii. 1); to make a feast, and invite guests to go unto it (Luke xiv. 1).

"There may we see from authority of holy Scripture, and warrant from Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath (Matt. xii. 8), what was lawful to be done on the Jewish Sabbath-day; so that they had as much liberty as we have, if the Jews of later times had not mistaken it, and from former profanation of the Sabbath, both before the Captivity (Ezek. xx. 12, 16; xxii. 8, 26; xxiii. 38) and after (Neh. xiii. 13), had not fallen to their Jewish and foolish superstition condemned by Christ." (P. 80.)

As to walking on the Sabbath-day, Bernard controverts the opinion of some contemporary author, that none ought to go out of doors, even to take a quiet walk-a notion founded on the command to the Israelites not to go out to gather manna on the seventh day. Bernard answers that "this was not a prohibition simply to go out, but only not to go out to gather manna; for they had not sinned in walking out, but they did sin in going to seek manna, which the Lord did not rain on that day, and had forbidden them to go out to seek it. If it were not lawful to go out on the Sabbath-day, how was it that some found in the wilderness a man gathering sticks, and yet they blameless; they went out, else they had not found him (Numb. xv. 32, 33). Yea, if it so fell out, upon the Sabbath-day there were causes of going out of their houses (Deut. xxiii. 10, 12, 13)." (Pp. 81, 82.) He says well, that on such points "we are not to regard the writings of the Jewish Rabbies of later times, infected with their own superstition, upon mistakes of Scripture." (P. 80.)

In Part III. he treats of "the Christian Sabbath, the Lord's Day; also now commonly called Sunday." He rejects the “loose opinions of the Familists, Anabaptists, and wicked Libertines, who would be free from any time of set solemn days for God's public service and worship, contrary to the command of God under the Law, and the constant custom of the church under the Gospel, among all orthodox Christians, in all places throughout the Christian world in, all ages for these sixteen hundred years." (P. 109.) Renouncing also "all Traskite and Brabornian errors," and holding that the Sabbath is a perpetual ordinance of the Fourth Commandmeat, though shifted under the Gospel to Sunday, he yet recognizes a distiction between the ceremonial rest prescribed to the Jews, and the rest which he holds necessary for the Christian festival this he "requires not otherwise than a necessary means to further us to holy duties, not as a worship of God in itself. . Moreover," says he, "we account the day holy; yet not for any inherent holiness therein, but for that it is set apart for holy uses: and the difference between this and other solemn holy days dedicated to the honour of Christ we take to be, that this is grounded on authority divine, and unchangeable, and so not the other; yet to be observed with rest to religious duties, as is ordained by the authority of the Church, which is not at any time to be despised." (P. 111.)

In chapter 6th, it is contended "that the first day of the week is the Lord's Day, and also the seventh day;" while the 7th treats of "the time when this first day began to be the Lord's Day, and upon what ground." The ground assigned is not a command of Christ, but merely "his resurrection, by which the Lord's Day was declared to Christians, and from that time began to be celebrated." (P. 121.) And seven reasons are given why "this remarkable work of God was to have that day a day of commemoration, above and before all other."

It was by the apostles, he maintains, that the change was made; "and their authority is no less than divine." (P.129.) On this

subject he expatiates largely. As to the beginning and ending of the day (a point much controverted at the time) he says: "I am persuaded, if we keep it from the morning to the evening, the consciences of men need not trouble them about any other curious search so that there be a religious preparation to it and a religious care in ending of it; not rushing into it with unsanctified hearts, nor concluding it with profaneness: for the nights are given for bodily rest (Psal. civ. 22, 23; John ix. 4).” (P. 124.) As usual, he produces a formidable array of exemplary judgments against the profaners of the Lord's Day." They are formally classified under three heads-those "immediate from God," those "mediate from God," and "casual judgments" (pp. 178-184); and he adds voluminous "answers to the objections which may be or are made against the producing of judgments in this case." (Pp. 184-200.)

The concluding chapter is "Concerning sports unlawful at all times, much more on the Lord's Day; and why sports lawful at other times are on this day to be forborne." His main ground for the duty of such abstinence is Isa, lviii. 13, which he applies to the Gentile Christians as well as Jews, though acknowledging that the doctrine he deduces from it has no foundation in the Fourth

Commandment. For he says: "This scripture is the only place in Holy Writ which teacheth us how to keep a Sabbath spiritual unto God, by teaching first what to avoid, and then what we should be taken up with on this day." It forbids "the doing of our own ways, finding our own pleasures, and speaking of [our own*] words. By our 'own' he doth mean what we please to do or speak without warrant from him, of our own heads, from our own worldly or carnal desires." (P. 227.) So far Bernard. But others, interpreting the prophet's language by the Fourth Commandment (which was the law he was exhorting his countrymen to keep, and their working on the day declared holy by which is thought to have been the only form in which their ways and wills could run counter to it), understand the words, "not doing thine own ways nor finding thine own pleasure," as equivalent to "not indulging thy desire to work on my holy day;" and they affirm that working is the only form of its profanation mentioned in Scripture, or with which the Jews are ever charged therein. (See White, quoted above, pp. 169, 171-2; and Cox, 437, 544-6, 555–561.) The ambiguity of the English word " 'pleasure," which means either voluntas or voluptas-will or enjoyment, is one source of difference between interpretations of Isaiah. In the Vulgate, as we have seen (p. 172), voluntas is the word employed; and the fact that the ancient Jews, not only without reproach, but with the positive sanction of Christ's example, made the Sabbath a day of more than usual enjoyment, is thought to prove conclusively that the Puritan interpretation of the word " pleasure in the English version is erroneous. Among Seventy Good Resolutions committed to writing by Jonathan Edwards, we read as

These words are supplied by the translators of the Bible.

"

follows: "Resolved, Never to utter any thing that is sportive, or matter of laughter, on the Lord's Day." (Life prefixed to his Works, vol. i. p. 70; New York, 1830.) But the question has been asked, Is it credible that nothing sportive was uttered at the table of that chief Pharisee with whom Jesus feasted on the Sabbath-day and would the feast have answered to the description of the wise man (Eccles. x. 19), if sportive utterances and laughter had been excluded?

106. WALKER, GEORGE, Rector of St John the Evangelist, Watling Street, London (died 1651).-The Doctrine of the Holy Weekly Sabbath. Lond. 1641.

In Brook's Lives of the Puritans, iii. 141, it is mentioned that Walker, having in one of his sermons opposed Bishop White's book, and recommended the holy observance of the Sabbath (as the Puritans understood the phrase), was summoned before Archbishop Laud, and received canonical admonition. In 1638 he was prosecuted, and severely censured in the Star-Chamber. Subsequently, having preached a sermon to prove "that it is a sin to obey the greatest monarch on earth, in those things which stand opposed to the commands of God," he was imprisoned for ten weeks, and at last compelled to enter into a bond of L.1000 to confine himself to his brother's house at Chiswick, his living being at the same time sequestered. He continued thus a prisoner upwards of two years, till released by the Parliament in 1641. His case was laid before the House of Commons, who passed a resolution that the treatment he had received was illegal, and that he ought to be restored to his parsonage and indemnified. In 1643 he was chosen a member of the Assembly of Divines, where, says Brook, by his munificent and generous behaviour, he gained a distinguished reputation. Wood says "he was esteemed an excellent logician, orientalian, and divine," but that he was "a severe Puritan." (Fasti Oxon. i. 179, ed. 1815.) A note by Baker to Wood's notice of him states that his Doctrine of the Sabbath was printed at Amsterdam in 1638. By Ley he is characterized as "a learned and zealous pleader for a weekly Sabbath in the Christian Church," but preferring to call it "the Lord's Day." (Sunday a Sabbath, p. 194.)

107. TwISSE, WILLIAM, D.D., Pastor of Newbury (died 1646). Of the Morality of the Fourth Commandment, as still in force to bind Christians. Delivered by way of Answer to the translator of Doctor Prideaux his Lecture concerning the Doctrine of the Sabbath. Divided into two parts: 1. An Answer to the Prefacer; 2. A consideration of Doctor Prideaux his Lecture. Lond. 1641. 4to. Pp. 246.