engaged in combats and trials here below. Abate the power and malice of their enemies; that all those who hate and persecute thy church, may be brought to repentance; that thy name may be celebrated to all generations; that thy kingdom and thy coming may be hastened; that thy saints may obtain the consummation of their bliss by the resurrection of their bodies, and receiving the crown of righteousness, which thou hast prepared for all that put their trust in thee; and that I with them may praise thy name for ever and ever. Amen.

CHAP. I.

THE LORD'S DAY.

Q. What part of our time hath God appropriated to his immediate service?

A. One day in seven, which he hath commanded to be kept holy.

Q. What do you mean by keeping a day holy?

A. Setting it apart for the exercises of religious duties, both in public and private; abstaining from the works of our ordinary calling, or any other worldly affairs and recreations, which may hinder our attendance upon the worship of God, and are not reconcileable with solemn assemblies, and may defeat those ends for which the day was separated from common uses.

Q. What day was anciently set apart for this purpose?

A. The seventh: for God having in six days made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, he rested the seventh day, and hallowed it.

1 Gen. ii. 3.

Q. What mean you by God's resting from his work?

A. That the creation of all things was finished, and the world entirely made; this resting of God being spoken after the manner of men; for the Creator of the ends of the world fainteth not, neither is weary.*

Q. Why was the seventh day, called Saturday, commanded to be observed by the Jews?

A. To be a sign to testify what God they worshipped, whereby they professed that Jehovah, and no other, was the God of Israel, and consequently was an admirable institution to secure them from idolatry. For, by sanctifying the seventh day,' after they had laboured six, they avowed themselves worshippers of that only God, who created the heaven and the earth, and having spent six days in that great work, rested the seventh day; and therefore commanded this suitable distribution of their time, as a badge that their religious service was appropriated to him alone. And by sanctifying that seventh day, namely Saturday, they professed themselves servants of Jehovah their God, in a relation and respect peculiar and proper to themselves, viz. that they were servants of that God who redeemed Israel out of the land of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage. For upon the morning-watch of that very day they kept for their sabbath, he overwhelmed Pharoah and all his host, in the Red sea, and saved Israel out of the hand of the Egyptians.

m

Q. How far, and in what manner, doth the observation bind Christians?

A. The Christian, as well as the Jew, after six days spent in his own works, is to sanctify the seventh, that

*Isaiah xl. 28.

1 Exod. xxxi. 13.

m

Deut. xiii. 5.

he may profess himself thereby a servant of God, the Creator of heaven and earth, as well as the Jew; but in the designation of the day they differ. The Christian chuses for this day of rest, the first day of the week, that he might thereby profess himself a servant of that God, who on the morning of that day vanquished Satan, and redeemed us from our spiritual thraldom, by raising Jesus Christ our Lord from the dead.

Q. What authority have we for the change of this day from the seventh to the first day of the week?

A. The authority and practice of the holy Apostles, who followed the moral equity of the fourth commandment. For the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt by the ministry of Moses, was intended for a type and pledge of the spiritual deliverance which was to come by Christ. Their Canaan also, to which they marched, being a type of that heavenly inheritance which the redeemed by Christ do look for. Since, therefore, the shadow is made void by the coming of the substance, the relation is changed and God is no longer to be worshipped and believed in as a God foreshewing and assuring by types, but as a God who has performed the substance of what he promised.

Q. Why is the first day of the week called the Lord's day?

A. Not only because it is immediately dedicated to his service; but because on that day our Lord Jesus Christ arose from the dead, and rested from the work of our redemption, which he completed on that day by his

resurrection.

Q. How did the Apostles and the Christians at first observe this day?

"Acts xx. 7. 1 Cor. xvi. 2.

Col. ii. 16, 17.

A. It plainly appears from the Scriptures, that the first day of the week was their stated and solemn time of meeting for public worship. On this day the Apostles were assembled, when the Holy Ghost came down so visibly upon them to qualify them for the conversion of the world. On this day we find St. Paul preaching at Troas, when the disciples came together to break bread; whereby is understood the celebration of the sacrament, or their feasts of charity, which were always accompanied with the eucharist. And the directions the same Apostle gives to the Corinthians, concerning their contributions for the relief of their poor suffering brethren, seem plainly to regard their religious assemblies on the first day of the week."

Q. How was this day observed in the primitive church?

A. The Christians of those times had their public meetings on Sundays. In which assemblies the writings of the Apostles and Prophets were read to the people, and the doctrines of Christianity were farther pressed upon them by the exhortations of the clergy. Solemn prayers were offered up to God, and hymns sung in honour of our Saviour, and the blessed sacrament administered. Collections were made for the relief of the poor, whether widows or orphans, prisoners or strangers, or others labouring under sickness or any necessities.

Q. Though the most proper name of this day of public worship is, as St. John himself calls it, the Lord's day, did the primitive Christians scruple to call it Sunday ?$

A. No: Justin Martyr and Tertullian both call it so; because it happened upon that day of the week which

P Acts ii. 1.

9 Acts. xx. 7. 1 Cor. xvi. 2.

Rev. i. 10.

by the heathens was dedicated to the sun; and therefore, as being best known to them, the fathers commonly made use of it, in their apologies to the heathen governors and it seldom passes under any other name in the imperial edicts of the first Christian emperors. Besides, it may properly retain that name; because dedicated to the honour of our Saviour, who is by the prophet called the Sun of Righteousness that was to arise with healing in his wings.

t

Q. In what sense may the Lord's day be called the Sabbath?

A. In that we rest on that day from the works of our ordinary callings, and dedicate it to the immediate worship of God, whose service is perfect freedom. But by Scripture, antiquity, and all ecclesiastical writers, it is constantly appropriated to Saturday, the day of the Jews' Sabbath, and but of late years used to signify the Lord's day; so that though the charge of Judaism, upon those that use it in a Christian sense appears too severe, yet upon many respects it might be expedient but sparingly to distinguish the day of the Christian worship by the name of the Sabbath.

Q. Was not the Sabbath anciently observed as well as the Lord's day?

A. Though the necessity of observing the Jewish Sabbath was vacated by the apostolical institution of the Lord's day, and by our Saviour's having blotted out the hand-writing of ordinances;" whereby it became as unreasonable for any one to condemn a Christian for not observing the Jewish Sabbath, as it was for neglecting their other ceremonial institutions: yet, in the east, where the gospel chiefly prevailed among the Jews, who