of God. To the Heathens who were in the army he gave orders to repair into the open fields, and there, upon a signal being given, to offer up their supplications to the Deity; teaching them, as Eusebius remarks, "not to confide in their spears, or armour, or bodily strength, but to acknowledge Him who is God over all, the giver of all good things, and of victory itself, to whom they ought to offer solemn supplications, lifting up their hands to heaven, and raising the eyes of their minds, to the King of heaven, and whom they ought to invoke as the giver of victory, as their Saviour, Guardian, and Helper." He moreover gave to his soldiers a form of prayer, which, according to Eusebius, was as follows: "We acknowledge thee to be the only God; we confess thee to be the King; we invoke thee as our Helper. From thee we have obtained victory; by thee we have overcome our enemies; to thee we refer the good things that we enjoy; and for future ones our hopes are centered in thee. We implore thee long to preserve to us our emperor Constantine, and his pious offspring, safe and victorious e."

Eusebius, De Vita Constantini, lib. iv. cap. xviii. p. 534. D.
Ibid. lib. iv. cap. xix. p. 535. A. B.

e Ibid. lib. iv. cap. xx. p. 535. C.

There is a passage in Eusebius's Life of Constantine which has given the learned He says, that, by order of Constantine, the

some trouble.

The assertion of Nicephorus, that Constantine gave the name of Lord's day to that which the Hebrews call the first day of the week, and the Greeks sunday, is abundantly refuted by the authorities already adduced, which prove that this appellation was in use from the time of the apostles'. It is also clear beyond all contradiction, that Constantine enforced, by legal enactments, the sanctity of the Lord's day; and the only question is, whether he was influenced by consi

doors of the idol-worship were closed to all who lived in the Roman empire, and that every kind of sacrifice was forbidden : πύλαι ἀπεκλείοντο εἰδωλολατρίας, θυσίας τε τρόπος ἀπηγορεύετα Tãs. (lib. iv. cap. xxiii. p. 536. C.) On this place Valesius remarks; "Hæc benigne interpretanda sunt. Constat enim sacrificia Gentilium à Constantino Magno non fuisse nominatim prohibita, ut diserte dicet Libanius in oratione pro templis. Privata quidem et domestica sacrificia Constantinus lege lata prohibuit, ut patet ex codice Theodosiano de maleficis et mathematicis, et ex lege prima de paganis. Sed publica ac solemnia, quæ a majoribus instituta fuerant, non inhibuit." Now I submit, whether the difficulty may not be better obviated by supposing that Eusebius's remark refers solely to the Lord's day; as in the very next sentence he says; "A law was likewise sent to the governors of the provinces to reverence the Lord's day." This seems to imply that he is speaking of what appertains to that festival. If this conjecture be just, it affords an easy solution to the subsequent chapter, 25, which presents a similar difficulty.

f Nicephorus, lib. vii. cap. 46, cited in Suicer, Thesaur. Ecclesiast. vol. ii. p. 184.

derations of expediency, or from a conviction that it was agreeable to the apostolical doctrine. That the latter was the real motive seems evident from the piety of that monarch; for there is no reason for doubting, as Gibbon is inclined to do, the sincerity of his profession of Christianity; and, if he possessed any genuine piety, it would have revolted at the institution of a sabbath, had he known that the founders of his religion had abolished all distinction of days. Nor would his conduct in this particular have accorded with the political wisdom universally ascribed to him; as such a violation of the prejudices of the Pagans, and such a departure from the apostolical prac tice, would rather have retarded than advanced the progress of Christianity, the success of which he was so anxious to promote. He must, therefore, have believed that he was acting agreeably to the precepts and practice of the apostles, when he established by his imperial edicts the observance of the Lord's day; and it cannot be conceived that he was entirely mistaken in the matter. His laws respecting it were promulged but little more than 200 years after the death of the Apostles; the current of tradition was flowing in an uninterrupted and incorrupted stream ; many writings and documents, now lost, were at that period accessible to every inquirer; and possibly the extraordinary operation of the Spirit had

not yet altogether ceased; from all which it may safely be inferred that Constantine, and the men of his council, were both acquainted with the practice of the immediate followers of our Lord, and acted conformably to it in giving a legal sanction to a weekly festival in the Christian church.

After this period the appropriation of sunday was fortified by the decrees of various councils, and by imperial laws, the chief of which may be seen in Suicer, Heylin, Bingham; and the due consecration of it was inculcated by the learned doctors of the church. The Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries had access to numerous productions of a prior age, and to many records which have unfortunately perished; and they had so many valuable sources of information, that they cannot be supposed either to have been ignorant of the truth, or to have, one and all, intentionally misrepresented it; especially a truth so little liable to be mistaken as the religious observance of the first day of the week. Their testimony, then, is important; and, in the absence of any other, might be sufficient to decide the point at issue: but the evidence of the anteNicene church to the Christian sabbath, is so extensive and convincing, that additional witnesses are not required. A few testimonies, howeyer, from the Fathers of the fourth and fifth

centuries shall be produced; for, though they are not needed to corroborate, they will at least shew their correspondency with those of the Fathers of earlier ages.

Athanasius, who flourished Exposition of Psalm cxvii. 24.

A.D. 326, in his "This is the day

which the Lord hath made," remarks: "What day can here be meant, but the day of our Lord's resurrection? What day but that which brought salvation to all nations, in which the stone that was rejected became the head of the corner? The expression signifies our Lord's resurrection-day, that which was entitled from him, that is to say, the Lord's day "." He condemns certain persons, Arians, "who did not reverence the sacred festival of the Lord's day"." In another place he says: "The sabbath was the end of the first creation, but the Lord's day the beginning of the second, when he renewed the old (creation.) Therefore, as he formerly ordered the sabbath day to be observed, in commemoration of the end of his first works, so we venerate the Lord's day as a commemoration of the beginning of his second, which were a renovation; for he did not make a new creation, but renewed the old one,

Athanasius, vol. i. p. 1203. C. ed. Benedict, 3 vols. folio. Paris, 1698.

b Epist. Encyclica, vol. i. p. 115. B.