a command is not a whit more binding than the mere keeping of its letter: the error of the Pharisees, rebuked by Jesus, and avoided by even David and Abiathar in the old ceremonial day. We hold the essence of the fourth commandment to be, that one-seventh of human time shall be spent as a rest-day unto God; and that this is one of the precepts of the unrepealed Decalogue. The change to the first day of the week is a simple modification of the form of the commandment, and we reverently believe that no being in the universe has so little care for what is simply and only formal as the Creator of the universe. A sailor circumnavigating the earth gains a day, and at the end of his voyage celebrates his Sabbath on Monday. Is it any less the acceptable Lord's day to the Lord of the Sabbath? Nothing can be more in accordance with the attributes and ways of God, as revealed in the Scriptures, than such a change of the particular day, while preserving the unchanging fact of a seventh day of holy rest. To keep the world in mind of him, its Creator, God ordained that it should rest on the day which he had blessed and sanctified, when his creative work was done. In the fullness of time there comes another epoch in the eternal ages of God-than which, who shall say that even the Most High shall ordain a greater-when the incarnate God completes his work of humiliation and suffering for his lost world, and enters upon his mediatorial glory. Shall He not ordain for this ransomed world a memorial day for this? Did it need even a command that the rest day of the creation should merge itself into the Lord's day of the redemption? just as the Passover, without distinct abrogation, quietly glided away and the Communion of the Lord's Supper took its place.

We have aimed in this article only to discuss some general principles; to cover only what seemed necessary to a proper answer to the question, What is the relation of the Fourth Commandment to Christian duty? The applications of the broad principle we have endeavored to defend must be left, where the Saviour left them, to the enlightened conscience and wisdom of the individual believer, and the church of God. In regard to these, as they vary according to times and circum

stances, nothing can uplift from us the ever-present need of scriptural insight and divine assistance. We should be grieved, indeed, to even appear to dissent from the many wise and noble utterances of Robertson and Bacon on this Sabbath question; particularly those made in behalf of the less privileged portion of our world-the poor, whom we always have with us-and unto whom it is one of the most imperative duties of the church of Christ to make the Sabbath a delight, holy of the Lord and honorable.

Mr. Bacon calls our attention to the significant fact that "devout scholars on the continent of Europe, recognizing the superior excellence of the Lord's day as observed in America, are urging the introduction of our practice, while they continue to condemn our theory." The fact is hopeful for the continent; we trust not ominous to us. Perhaps the true theory of the Sabbath is one of the many good gifts which the new world is bestowing on the old. It may be that these scholars will yet be pondering the question, whether a nation's practice does not, sooner or later, follow its theory; and whether both Europe and America have not each been giving some centuries of illustrations of this law. We have no doubt that the continental practice is the legitimately-born child of the continental theory. We believe that if the Pilgrim Fathers had imported to this land the continental theory, these devout scholars would not now be enjoying a Sabbath observance here superior to their own; and we are profoundly convinced that if ever there shall be among the Christians of these United States a general adoption of the Sabbath theory as held in Europe, the prevalence of the European observance of the Sabbath will be close at hand.

ART. V.-PRESIDENT WHEELOCK AND THE GREAT REVIVAL.

By Rev. E. H. GILLETT, D. D., New York.

THE progress of the "Great Revival" in different parts of New England created a demand for that kind of preaching which few were better qualified to supply than Bellamy, Pomeroy and Wheelock. In some respects Edwards and Tennent were perhaps their superiors, but Edwards found enough to employ him at Northampton and its vicinity, and Tennent was too distant to repeat his New England tour without great inconvenience. It is not strange, therefore, that the labors of Wheelock should have been in request from different quarters. His correspondence shows that the applications made to him, from places near and far, to visit and preach to them

were numerous.

In May or June (1741) he had gone North to Windsor, Northampton, and, among other places, to Stafford, where the people were "left as sheep without a shepherd," and besought his aid. In September, the pastor of Windsor, Jonathan Marsh, "at the motion made by the deacons of the church, who speak the minds of the better part of the society," entreats of him a "farther visit," "in hope of the revival of the work among us anew by your means.' "The eyes and hearts of the better part of our people," he adds, "are much set on you (with your brother Pomeroy). They won't be content without another visit from you."

But still more urgent invitations called Wheelock in yet another direction. In the latter part of October he set out on a preaching tour with the purpose of visiting Boston. His journal, for the next three weeks, indicates the energy and zeal with which he prosecuted his work. He visited—preaching at each place-Plainfield, Voluntown, Scituate, Providence, Rehoboth, Norton, Raynham, Taunton, Braintree, etc., and at Boston received an enthusiastic welcome. He preached for Messrs. Webb and Prince, and Dr. Coleman, to crowded

* Printed in full for the first time in the Historical Magazine, 1869.

assemblies, and was urged to preach at Cambridge. His farewell sermon attracted throngs who were unable to get into the large church edifice, and some of his most intelligent hearers told him afterward, "they believed that Mather Byles was never so lashed in his life." A copy of his sermon for Dr. Coleman was requested for the press.

With the invitation from Cambridge he was unable to comply. His time was limited, and he was forced to refuse applications which followed him from places that he had previously visited. One of the most urgent of these was from Providence, whence the pastor, Rev. Mr. Cotton, hastened to Boston to persuade him to return thither. He bore with him a letter from Benjamin Cary, dated Nov. 8, 1741, enforcing the application, and saying, "This night we had above twenty young people, and six or seven a crying out in great distress. Likewise last Sabbath night four, Mr. Cotton will inform you of. These are therefore to beg you to return with our dear pastor to help us once more."

But a Council was to meet at Windham on the 16th of the month, and Wheelock, who had been absent nearly four weeks, was in haste to return. Perhaps the state of ecclesiastical affairs in Connecticut had not a little to do with it. On the 30th of October, while he was on his way to Boston, Solomon Williams, of Lebanon, wrote to him that Rector Clap, "at the desire of the Governor and Council," had transmitted to him, as last Moderator of the Convention of the Association, a copy of an Act of Assembly importing, that in view of the unhappy divisions subsisting in the colony, and in the hope "that a general Consociation of the churches, consisting of three ministers and three messengers from each particular Consociation, might issue in the accommodation of divisions, and promoting the true interests of vital piety," the expense of the entertainment of such Convention (to meet at Guilford, Nov. 24, 1741) should be borne by the government, and that the consociated churches of Windham County would meet at Windham on the 16th to elect delegates.

The party opposed to Whitefield, and jealous of the course pursued by the itinerating preachers generally, had so far

succeeded in their plans as to secure the calling of this meeting of the General Consociation, by which some remedy for the ecclesiastical confusion was to be provided. Men like Rector Clap, Stiles of North Haven, and Whittlesey of Wallingford, were ready to invoke the aid of the civil authority for their own protection from itinerating fervor; and it was doubtless quite generally understood that their conclusions would be embodied-as they afterward were-into a law of the colony. On the very day that the Council met at Windham, Bellamy wrote to Wheelock, "You know, doubtless, that the Consociation is to be held at Guilford next week. Dear Sir, fail not of being there, together with Mr. Mecham and Pomeroy, and all that are true friends of the suffering interests of our dear Lord. I trust you will meet there all your brethren from this way."

The results of the doings of the Consociation are well known. They prepared the way for the Act of 1742, which was designed to put a stop to the itineracy of such men as Bellamy, Pomeroy and Wheelock, as well as of Tennent and Finley, from without the bounds of the colony. Upon the character of that Act, denounced by Trumbull in his history, as well as by Prince and Edwards in this country, and leading dissenters in England, it is not necessary to dwell. Under heavy penalties it forbade the preaching of any minister within the bounds of another parish than his own, except by the invitation of the pastor, or the vote of the major part of the Society. Whoever transgressed the law was debarred from legal maintenance, and was left dependent for his salary on the voluntary contributions of his people.

The suggestion of such an enactment by the Consociation indicates the strong feeling of opposition which was arrayed against the friends of the Revival. In some cases it rose to extreme bitterness. Among several others, Wheelock must have been regarded as not the least obnoxious. We can not doubt that his views of the measures of the Consociation were in full accord with those of Bellamy. He does not appear, however, to have been present at the meeting at Guilford. He had been so long absent from home, perhaps, that he