Of the Thanksgiving against Sickness, &c. 101

rect, the passions which produce them. There cannot, therefore, be any principle adverse to the spirit of the gospel in the oblation of our praises and thanksgivings to the supreme Governor of the universe on this account. We rejoice, not that wars exist, but that, since in the system of divine providence they are permitted to disturb the world, and to include our native country in their destructive vortex, the ruin and devastation which would attend their nearer approach, have been repelled from the bosom of our land, by the victories with which he has mercifully favoured us.

XX. Of the Thanksgiving for restoring Public Peace at home.

Q. Why ought we to make use of this thanksgiving?

A. Because it is God who maketh men to be of one mind; it is he who stills our troubles, and gives the peace we enjoy. It is the observation of Pindar," that it is an easy matter for the vilest of men to stir up a city to rebellion; but it would be impossible to appease them, if God did not direct and assist the governors thereof." To him, therefore, we are bound to render most hearty praise for deliverance from rebellion and domestic feuds.

XXI. Of the Thanksgiving for Deliverance from great Sickness and Mortality..

Q. What does the church teach us in this collect? A. To acknowledge, that as our sins have been many, of divers kinds, and of long continuance, so might our punishment justly have been; but our God has showed himself a merciful father, in that he hath not dealt with us according to our deserving. And since we are now delivered from this great calamity, we may very properly give thanks. to: God in the form here prescribed.

XXII. Of the Thanksgiving for a Recovery from Sickness.

Q. Why has our Church appointed this thanksgiving?

A. Because it is a duty which none who have had the prayers of the church should omit after their recovery, lest they incur the reprehension given by our Saviour to the ungrateful lepers recorded in the gospel: Were there not ten cleansed, but where are the nine?

XXIII. Of the Thanksgiving for a safe Return from Sea.

Q. Why has the church enjoined this thanksgiving? A. Because the most acceptable sacrifice that we can offer to God, is devoutly to praise him, and to recount the wonderful operations of his providence; which mariners, who traverse the sea, have, in a special manner, frequent opportunities of doing. For these men very often behold many astonishing works of God, which are not to be discovered by others; not only in fishes and sea-monsters, but in the surprising commotion of that vast body of waters. When in a mighty tempest they find that their skill in navigation, and all other human endeavours fail, they are constrained to apply to God for help. And then he, who reserves to himself an uncontrolled authority over the winds and waters, in answer to their prayers allays the boisterous storm, and smooths the disturbed waves into a calm and quiet sea. This kind dispensation of providence tends to impress their minds with pleasing and delightful thoughts; especially when they safely arrive at the port to which they are destined. And, therefore, what reason have seamen to be mindful of such goodness of God towards them; and how proper to make a public acknowledgment of it in his church, to show forth their gratitude, both for their own further benefit, and for the edification of others!

CHAPTER V.

Of the Sundays and Holy-Days throughout the Year.

COLOSSIANS ii. 16, 17.

Let no man therefore judge you-in respect to an holy-day, or of the new-inoon, or of the Sabbath-days, which are a sha dow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.

I. Of the Sundays in general.

Q. Why was one day in seven ordained to be kept holy?

A. One principal design of it was, that men, by thus sanctifying the seventh day, after they had spent six in labour, might show themselves to be worshippers of that God only, who rested the seventh day after he had finished the heavens and the earth in six.

Q. Why was Saturday the Jewish sabbath?

A. The reasons why the Jews were commanded to observe Saturday for their sabbath in particular, were peculiar to themselves: It was on this day that God delivered them from their Egyptian bondage, and overwhelmed Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea; so that no day could be more properly set apart to celebrate the mercies and goodness of God than that on which he himself chose to confer upon them the greatest blessings they enjoyed.

Q. Why is Sunday observed by Christians?

A. The deliverance of Israel out of Egypt by the ministry of Moses, was intended as a type and pledge of a spiritual deliverance, which was to be effected by Christ: their Canaan also was a type of that heavenly Canaan, which the redeemed by Christ look for. Since, therefore, the shadow is made void by the coming of the substance, the relation is changed, and God is not now to be wor

shipped and believed in as a God foreshowing and assuring by types, but as a God who hath performed the substance of what he promised. Christians, indeed, as well as Jews, are to observe the moral duties of the fourth commandment, and after six days spent in their own works, are to sanctify the seventh; but in the designation of the particular day, they may and ought to differ. For if the Jews sanctified the seventh day, because they had on that a temporal deliverance, as a pledge of a spiritual one; the Christians certainly have much greater reason to sanctify the first, since on that day God redeemed us from spiritual thraldom, by raising Jesus Christ our Lord from the dead, and by giving us, instead of an earthly Canaan, an inheritance incorruptible in the heavens. And we have the concurrent testimonies of scripture and antiquity, that the first day of the week, or Sunday, hath ever been the stated and solemn time of the Christians meeting for their public worship and service.*

Q. Why and how was Saturday observed by the eastern Christians?

A. In the east, where the gospel chiefly prevailed among the Jews, who retained a great reverence for the Mosaic rites, the church thought fit to indulge the humour of the Judaizing Christians so far as to observe Saturday as a festival day of de

Pliny, in his epistle to the emperor Trajan, tells him, "that he found nothing to alledge against the Christians, but their obstinacy in their superstition, and that it was their cus tom to meet together on a set day before it was light." And what that set day was, Justin Martyr, who wrote but a few years after him, has taken care to inform us. "On Sundays," says he, "all Christians, in the city or country, meet together, because that is the day of our Lord's resurrection; and then we have read to us the writings of the prophets and apostles.When this is done, the president makes an oration to the assembly, to exhort them to imitate, and do the things which they have heard; and then we all join in prayer, and after that. celebrate the sacrament."

votion, whereon they met for the exercise of religious duties, as is plain from several passages of the ancients: But, however, to prevent giving any offence to others, they openly declared, that they observed it in a Christian way, and not as a Jewish sabbath and this custom was so far from being universal, that at the same time, all over the west, except at Milan in Italy, Saturday was kept as a fast, as being the day on which our Lord lay dead in the grave.

:

HYMN.

Again the day returns of holy rest,
Which, when he made the world, Jehovah blest;
When like his own he bade our labour cease,
And all be piety, and all be peace.

While injurious men despise the sage decree,
From vain deceit, and false philosophy;
Let us its wisdom own, its blessings feel,
Receive with gratitude, perform with zeal.

Let us devote this consecrated day
To learn his will, and all we learn obey;
In pure religion's hallow'd duty share,
And join in penitence, and join in prayer.

So that the God of mercy, pleased, receive
That only tribute man has power to give ;
So shall he hear, while fervently we raise
Our choral harmony in hymns of praise.

CHORUS.

Father of heaven, in whom our hopes confide, Whose power defends us, and whose precepts guide;

In life our guardian, and in death our friend,
Glory supreme be thine till time shall end."