then they are usurpers of the sacred office, and, as such, ought to have no countenance from those who esteem themselves as the sole apostolical ministers of Christ. We should like much to see an honest attempt, on the part of those high prelates, to prove the slightest analogy between the existing orders of the Church of England and those appointed during, or immediately after, the apostolic era. One thing is clear to a demonstration-that there is nothing in the government or offices of the Prelatic hierarchy corresponding to those six principles already drawn from the Scripture records of the Apostolic Church.

In regard to Independency, it is difficult to discover what is the settled form of ecclesiastical government. It fails rather by defect in adopting the whole of the apostolic practice, than by setting up a worldly hierarchy in its room, like Prelacy. It fails in regard to the plurality of elders in each congregation, as there is usually only one bishop, or elder, and deacons. Though each congregation professes to be a complete church, the plurality of presbyters is wanting; and as there is no jurisdiction beyond the individual congregation, there can be no court of appeal, and consequently no provision for the vindication of the rights of minister or members. Some Independents hold, while others deny, the necessity of ordination in order to the valid exercise of the ministerial functions. Many have acted as pastors who were never inducted to office by the imposition of hands. Ordination is not essential to the completion of their system. It is rather a matter of taste, as put by Dr Davidson in his "Ecclesiastical Policy," when he says, Those who think it right to omit the custom of laying on of hands are liable to no censure. They act wisely in following the suggestions of conscience, or the dictates of judgment, and may well smile at the old heresy-hunting Presbyterians." By this writer conscience, or reason, is put in the place of Divine authority, while one of Christ's ordinances for the separation of the officebearers of His Church is set aside by human authority.

Space forbids that we should pursue this comparison further at present; but we think it has been clearly shown that all the essentials of Presbyterian Church government are found in the records of the Apostolic Church, while neither for Prelacy nor Independency can any such precepts or examples be urged. It is something more, therefore, than a matter of taste or opinion whether a person shall unite with the Presbyterian, Prelatic, or Independent Church. It involves the question of subjection to Christ, the Head, and the advancement of His kingdom and glory. In this light our covenanting forefathers viewed the subject, when they sacrificed life itself rather than deny the Headship of King Jesus, or barter the blood-bought privileges of His subjects. Lukewarm Presbyterians may treat the question of the jus divinum of church government as a matter of opinion; but in doing so they are practically denying the supremacy of King Jesus, playing into the hands of His enemies, subverting the principles of ecclesiastical and civil freedom, and forging chains for future generations. In regard to the government of the Church, we are bound to hold fast the practice of the Apostolic Church as really

as her "faith;" and it is only in doing so that any section of Christendom can lay claim to the genuine apostolical succession. It is not a matter of local communion, or of traditional and historical descent, but OF IDENTITY IN PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE. Those alone can claim apostolical succession who hold the truth as it is in Jesus, adopt the constitution which He has granted, and dispense the ordinances which He has appointed.

HOW DOES GOD REQUIRE THE SABBATH TO BE

KEPT?

If this question is so plainly answered in the Holy Scriptures that "he may run that readeth," this should put an end to all controversy on this subject. None, surely, who profess to be Christians, will say that we may be content with a kind of Sabbath observance which is widely different from that which is prescribed by God himself in His Word. There is some danger of taking our standard of Sabbath sanctification from our neighbours-from the practice of our parents, or that of our associates, and not from the mouth of the Lord; or of making a standard of our own, much narrower and lower than that which is set forth in the sacred Oracles. This is very unreasonable; but it is so common for men to act irrationally as to the things of God, and the interests of the soul, that the unreasonableness of this conduct is scarcely ever noticed, much less deplored by any, except such as are blessed with spiritual discernment. Hence the lack of even an aim at such Sabbath sanctification as the Divine Lawgiver enjoins by multitudes who bear the Christian name, and profess to believe that "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God."

Let us, then, call the attention of our readers to the way in which God declares distinctly in His Word that He will have His professing people in particular, and men in general, to keep His Sabbath. And in order not to be tedious, and give unity to our remarks, we shall confine them at present to two passages of Scripture in which this part of the will of God is very clearly stated.

The first to which we advert is that part of the Decalogue which has special respect to the day of holy rest-the fourth commandment. The words of this precept are, first, "Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy." This shows, as plainly as language can, that it is the will of the Lord our God that we should keep every returning Sabbath holy. And what is meant by holiness is stated immediately in the precept itself, and elsewhere, in terms easily understood, and in some respects the more easily, that they are chiefly of a negative kind-expressing what we are not to do on the Lord's day more explicitly and pointedly than what we are to do. It is evidently the will of God that the Sabbath should be kept holy, not in part, but as one whole. Hence the words, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep IT holy." Further, the character of the Sabbath, and its claims, are to be "remembered" as it approaches, and as its hours proceed, for

the express purpose of stirring ourselves up to keep it holy. On that day there is to be habitual watchfulness against whatever is inconsistent with its holiness, and to the exercises, internal and external, which are in harmony with its spirit. Nor is it possible to keep the Sabbath holy without having the mind and thoughts engaged about spiritual things, and being engaged in religious duties.

Secondly. It is the will of the Lord that those who keep the Sabbath should be diligent in the business of this world on the other days of the week. "Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work." This is not simply a permission to labour in the varied work of this world during the six days; it is a call to this as duty, to be performed by all on these days. And those who rightly attend to worldly business on the six days, will find no need for making any encroachments on the seventh day with this kind of work. Such will never have cause to feel that any loss is sustained by them in suspending such business on the Sabbath.

Thirdly. The Sabbath is to be kept holy by abstaining from doing any part of our own work on that day. "In it thou shalt not do any work"-any secular work-any of thine own earthly works. Why? For the highest and best possible reason. It is "the Sabbath of the Lord thy God"-His special property, to be employed in His special service, and not yours, and cannot, without appropriating unrighteously what belongs to God, be employed in any other way.

Fourthly. It is not enough that a person abstains from working at any worldly business himself on the Sabbath; he is also to see that all who are subject to him, and under his special control, abstain from such work on the day of the Lord. "In it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates." This shows that God's Sabbaths are to be kept holy by families, by organized societies, cities, and communities collectively, and that parents, heads of families, and civil rulers, have authority to enforce the outward observance of the Sabbath as a day of holy rest; and ecclesiastical society, by its officebearers, are to inculcate with all earnestness, on all its members, the spiritual sanctification of the Sabbath, and to see, in every way competent to them, that the day of God be spent by them in the way which He enjoins.

There are, fifthly, the reasons which God is pleased to give to enforce the observance of one day in seven as a day of holy rest-" For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is." He did so with the special design of setting an example of six days' labour to His creatures. Those who make a right use of six days in secular business, will have no cause to complain that too small a share of time is granted for such work; they will find it very ample for the performance of such work in the best way, as God himself did in His vast work, and rested the seventh day from the kind of work in which He had been engaged in the six, and did so as an example to be copied. How high is this example! What an honour it is to follow it! 66 Wherefore, because God rested on that day, He

blessed the Sabbath and hallowed it"-set it apart, separated it to be holy to the Lord. He has so joined the blessing of the Sabbathby which He made it a blessing-a special blessing to His creatures— and the hallowing of it together, that it is only in the way of its being kept holy that the blessedness which the Sabbath is calculated to diffuse in society, in its highest, its sweetest, and most enduring form, can be enjoyed by individuals or by communities. All who would truly know in their own experience that God has blessed the Sabbathday above all other days, must be taught to keep it holy; and the more holy they are enabled to keep it, the more blessed will they find themselves in the highest sense.

The second portion of Scripture pointing out the way in which God will have the Sabbath sanctified, to which we now advert, is Isaiah, lviii. 13, 14—“If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."

This is a divine exposition of the fourth commandment-the exposition which the great Lawgiver himself gives of His own law. And who else knows its meaning better than He does? Who will be so presumptuous as to think that he knows better than God the kind of Sabbath observance which corresponds to its letter and spirit? Men would do well to remember that the Lawgiver is also the Judge, at whose bar they must stand to be tried for the way in which they spend His Sabbaths, as well as for every other part of their conduct; and the sentence passed shall be such as accords with His judgment as to this, not theirs. Nor is it difficult to see how inexcusable God's exposition of His own law, quoted above, will render many of its habitual violators in the day of final reckoning. Here God declares, in the clearest language, that He will have His Sabbaths sanctified by abstaining in our practice from whatever is at variance with its holiness. 1st. We are to turn away our foot from the Sabbath. "Nothing must be done that puts contempt on the Sabbath-day, or looks like having mean thoughts of it, when God has so highly dignified it.”* "If thou take no unnecessary journeys, and restrain thyself from whatever may profane it."+ 2d. God requires that we abstain from doing our own pleasure on His holy day-that is, from carnal pleasures, as contrasted with spiritual, and with what is acceptable to God, whether it be what gratifies "the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh," or "recreations that are lawful on other days." The one clause may be understood as so far explaining the other. This is one in which the Sabbath is extensively profaned at the present time by members of churches, under the guise of seeking bodily health. It is strange that this means of sustaining health is so little cultivated on the other six days of the week, by many who have full opportunity, * Matthew Henry. + Poole.

way

compared with the use which is made of it on the Sabbath. But with some admitted exceptions, a large proportion of Sabbath walkers could easily find an hour on other days for such recreation, had they such a sense of obligation to use this means of health as they profess to feel every returning Sabbath, or were they as willing to deduct this portion of time from secular pursuits or trifling engagements on other days as they are to withdraw it from religious duties on the Lord's day. "The rule here given implies that men must not profane that day by doing their own work, or seeking their own secular interest; or by spending it in worldly pleasure and recreations, or sloth and carnal indulgence, or by vain and trifling conversation." "It is as real a profanation of the Sabbath to employ its sacred hours in recreation as in secular business."+ Further, The negative injunctions are," not doing thine own ways"-any part of thy worldly business or pursuits," nor finding thine own pleasure." The repetition of this prohibition by the supreme Lawgiver shows the importance which He attaches to abstinence from this form of Sabbath profanation, and the necessity of a double circumvallation, to protect the Sabbath from this species of violation.

The last thing forbidden on the Sabbath is, "speaking thine own words." This is one of the ways in which the Sabbath has been, and is extensively profaned. Many who abstain from doing their own works, refuse to refrain from speaking their own words on the Lord's day, and many more fail to watch duly against this form of Sabbath desecration. But every such word is marked by God's omniscient eye, and recorded in the book of His remembrance, and, unless forgiven through the blood of Christ, will form part of the indictment against him by whom it has been spoken, when he appears to receive his final sentence from the lips of the Judge of all the earth. "But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment" (Matt. xii. 36). Much more then, undoubtedly, must this be done for speaking words on the Sabbath which God has forbidden.

It is admitted that a large part of the duty as to the Sabbath here prescribed is negative in its form. But it implies more than mere abstinence from the things forbidden. It implies the positive sanctification of the Sabbath, in the diligent use of the various means of grace-reading and hearing the word of God, and other acts of private and public, secret and social worship. It is vain for any to think that it is possible to abstain from the things here forbidden on the Sabbath without having our minds actively engaged about the things of God-about things spiritual and heavenly. The mind of an intelligent creature cannot be a mere vacuum. If it be not engaged about divine and spiritual things, it will be occupied about earthly things. Nor can we expect to have our minds truly occupied on the Lord's day about the things of God, and our spiritual and eternal interests, unless we have been made by grace to see their value and importance. But those to whom they are so revealed by the Spirit, have their hearts drawn to them as objects about which they have pleasure and

* Scott in loco.

+ Rev. James Gilfillan on the Sabbath.