20. If ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances,

21. (Touch not, taste not, handle not:

22. Which all are to perish with the using,) after the commandments and doctrines of men?

23. Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will-worship and bumility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.

51. In the next chapter he goes on to direct the Colossians to seek those things which are above.

Mind the things above, not the things below, &c.

52. The whole of this train of reasoning is consistent with itself, and also with what he has said in the Epistle to the Romans,

xiv.

He who regardeth the day, regardeth it to the Lord; and he who regardeth not the day, to the Lord he regardeth it not.

53. The whole of St. Paul's preaching goes to inculcate that the observance of feasts and fasts is a matter merely optional, and that the observance or non-observance of them is no offence, and consequently he is directly against the compelling their observance by law.

54. In the whole of the Epistles, there does not seem to be a single clear, unequivocal passage in favor of the Sabbath. In almost numberless places breakers of such of the commandments as are in themselves moral rules, independent of the law of Moses, are condemned in the strongest terms: for example, 1 Cor. vi. 9, 10. Gal. v. 19–21. 2 Tim. iii. 2.

55. But in not one of them is a Sabbath-breaker named. How does this happen? The reason is sufficiently plain. The breach of the Sabbath under the old law was a breach of the covenant with God, and therefore a high offence; but the Sabbath being abolished, under the new law it was none.

56. Although Dr. Paley does not agree with the author entirely respecting the Lord's-day, he makes several admissions, which, coming from him, are very important. He says,

A cessation upon that day (meaning Sunday) from labour, beyond the time of attendance upon public worship, is not intimated in any passage of the New Testament; nor did Christ or his Apostles deliver, that we know of, any command to their disciples for a discontinuance upon that day of the common offices of their professions.'

57. Upon this it may be observed, neither is the necessity of attendance upon public worship intimated particularly on that day, in preference to any other. Nothing is said upon the subject, therefore nothing can be inferred. So that the proof of the necessity of attendance on divine worship must be sought for else

where. In fact, the non-inculcation of public worship in the passages alluded to above, proves nothing either for or against it: only it goes to prove that it was not particularly ordered on the first day, more than on the seventh or any other day, and leaves the times for its observance open to be fixed on what days the government, or the rulers of the churches think proper.-What is said here must not be construed as a wish to prohibit all public worship; but only to place it on a correct footing as a right of discipline, and to discourage the fashionable pharisaical doctrine, that all merit is included in praying in the synagogues, and at the corners of the streets, and making long speeches at Bible Society meetings, &c.

Again, Paley says, 'The opinion, that Christ and his Apostles meant to retain the duties of the Jewish Sabbath, shifting only the day from the seventh to the first, seems to prevail without sufficient proof; nor does any evidence remain in Scripture (of what, however, is not improbable) that the first day of the week was thus distinguished in commemoration of our Lord's resurrection.'-Mor. Phil. p. 337. Ed. 8vo.

58. Certainly in Scripture there is no evidence.

59. In this view of the doctrines of St. Paul the author is happy to have so learned and respectable a divine as Michaelis of his opinion. And indeed as the opinion of Michaelis is not objected to by Bishop Marsh, his translator, in his usual way by a note, where he disapproves any thing, the author seems to have a right to claim him also.

Michaelis, chap. xv. s. 3. says, 'The Epistle to the Colossians resembles that to the Ephesians, both in its contents and in its language, so that the one illustrates the other. In all three, the Apostle shows the superiority

In the four Gospels, no person can point out a single passage which, in clear unequivocal terms, directs the observance of public worship. One text may be shown where it is tolerated:

Where two or three are gathered together in one place, I will grant their request.

And one where it is discouraged, at the least, if it be not expressly prohibited; and where such persons as may not think it necessary are expressly justified for its non-observance :

5. And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues, and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.

6. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet; and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.-Matt. vi. 5, 6.

Except these two texts in the Gospels, the author knows not one which alludes to public worship ;- -a thing with pageantry, &c. &c. as much abused sometimes by Christians, as ever it was by Jews or Heathens. The attendance of Jesus in the synagogues can no more be cited to support it, than his observance of the passover and other Jewish rites can be cited to sup port the rest of the laws of Leviticus abolished by the Acts.

of Christ to the Angels, and warns the Christians against the worship of Angels. He censures the observation of Sabbaths, rebukes those who forbid marriage, and the touching of certain things, who deliver commandments of men concerning meats, and prohibit them.'

60. Some well-meaning persons, looking about for any thing which might aid them in the support of the early prejudices of their nurseries and education, have fancied, that they could find a Sabbath in the practice of the Apostles of meeting together on the first day of the week. This question we will now examine, and see whether they, on that day, did meet, and if from these meetings a rite of such prodigious importance as the renovation of the Jewish Sabbath can be inferred.

61. There are only three passages in the New Testament which make mention of the Apostles' being assembled on the first day of the week. The first is on the day of the resurrection, John xx. 19.

19. Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus, and stood in the midst of them.

62. Jesus Christ is described to have risen that day before daylight in the morning, and after all the various events which in the course of the first part of that eventful day had happened to several of them, it was very natural that they should assemble together as soon as possible, to confer respecting them, and to consider what was the proper line of conduct for them to pursue. It is absurd to suppose that this assembly could be held to celebrate the rites of the religion, before the Apostles were all of them satisfied that he had risen, and that his body had not been stolen, is stated that some of them at first suspected. The peculiar accidental circumstances evidently caused this meeting to be as soon as possible after the resurrection, and it would have been the fourth or any other day, if Jesus had happened to have arisen on that day.

69. But it is necessary to observe, for the information of such

It gives the author great satisfaction to have an opportunity of bearing his humble testimony to the conduct of Michaelis and Bishop Marsh. In reading their works, his pleasure is never diminished by the fear of wilful misrepresentation, economical reasoning, or false quotation. They are as superior to most of their predecessors or cotemporaries in integrity, as they are in talent. His Lordship has been seldom out of polemical warfare, and has experienced the usual vicissitudes of victory and defeat (the latter for instance by Gandolphy); but conqueror or conquered, he has never stooped' to the meanness of a pious fraud. 'It is one of the misfortunes of the author, never to have had the opportunity either to speak to or to see the venerable Bishop, one of the greatest ornaments of the bench in the present day.

persons as have not made the Jewish customs and antiquities their study, that the computation of time amongst the Jews was very different from ours; and it is evidently necessary to consider the words of the texts with reference to their customs, not to ours. Our day begins at or after twelve o'clock at night, theirs began at or after six o'clock in the evening. In Genesis it is said, And the evening and the morning were the first day. If the day had begun as ours does, it would have said, The morning and the evening were the first day; and in Levit. xxiii. 32. it is said, From even to even shall you celebrate your Sabbath; consequently, the Jewish Sabbath began on Friday evening at about six o'clock, and their supper, or, as it is called, their breaking of bread, took place immediately after; the candles being ready lighted, and the viands being placed on the tables, so that no work by the servants might be necessary; and there they remained on the tables till after six the next evening. The custom of breaking bread in token of amity and brotherly love, was an old custom of the Jews, something like the giving of salt amongst the Arabians, and is continued amongst them to this day.

64. By the word day two clear and distinct ideas are expressed; it means the light part of the twenty-four hours, in opposition to the dark part of them, and it means the period itself of the twentyfour hours-one revolution of the earth on its axis.

65. In the expression here, the same day at evening, the word day must mean, the day-light part of the day, in opposition to the dark part of it-the night; because Jesus could not have appeared literally on the evening of the first day of the week; that is, after six o'clock on the Saturday evening, he not having risen at that time; therefore this meeting, being probably after six o'clock in the evening, on account of the return of the two Apostles from Emmaus that day, the day of the resurrection, Luke xxiv. 30; it, in fact, must have taken place, though on the first day-light day, a little before sunset; yet, on the second, not on the first Jewish day of the week. It is not surprising that persons should find a difficulty in clearing their minds from the prejudices, created by long habit and education, respecting the question and expression of the first day of the week. But if they will only give themselves the trouble carefully to examine, the truth must prevail.

66. For these various reasons, whether the meeting named in John xx. 19. be considered the first day of the week, or the second, no inference in favor of a Sabbatical observance of the Sunday can be deduced: for it was merely accidental whether it were the first day or the second.

67. In the 26th verse of the twentieth chapter of John, it is said,

And after eight days, again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them.

68. Whether the meeting above alluded to was on the first or second day of the week, it does not seem clear how this, the day after eight days, should be the first, i. e. the eighth day. It may have been the ninth in one case, and the tenth in the other; but in no case can it have been the first or the eighth day. If this passage meant to describe the meeting to have been on the first day of the week, it would have said, On the first day; or, After seven days; or, On the day after the Sabbath. The expression evidently proves that it could not be the first.

69. The next passage, which is in the Acts of the Apostles, xx. 7, is as follows:

And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them (ready to depart on the morrow), and continued his speech until midnight.

70. As a learned layman, in his controversy with Dr. Priestley, has justly observed: This meeting, according to the Jewish custom, and form of language, and computation of time, could have taken place at no other time than after six o'clock on Saturday evening: there was but one time, viz. the evening of each day, when they met for the purpose of breaking of bread; and it therefore necessarily follows, that the preaching of Paul must have taken place on the Saturday night, after six o'clock, by our mode of computation, ready to depart on the morrow, at day-break. Surely the preaching of Paul on Saturday night, and his travelling on the Sunday, cannot be construed into a proof that he kept the Sunday as a Sabbath.

71. In the only subsequent passage where the first day of the week is named, 1 Cor. xvi. 2, the same gentleman has shown, that if any inference is to be drawn from the words contained in it, they go against the observance of it as a Sabbath, and imply that a man on that day was to settle his accounts of the week preceding, that he might be able to ascertain what he could lay up in store against Paul came.

Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come.

72. How can any one see in this verse, a proof that the first day of the week was to be kept by Christians as an obligation, as a Jewish Sabbath? It is well known that at first the Christians strictly kept the Jewish Sabbath; therefore they could not make a weekly settlement of their accounts till the day after the Sabbath, which was the first. It is observed