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F. True, he does, and nearly ruined his otherwise beautiful treatise on the evidences of christianity.

Esq. How do you account for this?

opinion; at least, he conveys the was to excite a few queries in your idea. mind respecting it. I knew you to be young and ardent; and the taste of the day seems to encourage such writings as those which we have been considering. Now for one, I do not believe that wisdom was born with Mr. Irving.— or will die with him. In spite of his declamation, I have yet left a great deal of respect for the clear, pure and appropriate English Language which divines have used in days that I never saw. And I would not exchange it for the careless and far borrowed Scotticisms of the Orator. C. F.

F. Perhaps the latter writer mentioned may ascribe his error to the want of investigation of that particular topic. Some men become so great, certain points are deemed too easy of decision to require investigation. They deem themselves capable of deciding almost intuitively; and will by no means descend to the drudgery of studying points of theology.

Besides, he has stepped from his profession, and has meddled with matters not appropriately belonging to him.

Esq. Then none but your Bishops have any right to speak or write upon theology!

F. That is more than I mean to say. But I seldom knew a man of one profession, that had a deep and universal acquaintance with the peculiarities of other professions. It is not irrational to suppose that divines should understand divinity as well as statesmen, lawyers, doctors, or farmers.

Esq. Perhaps then Mr. Irving understands theology, and the manner of treating it, as well as you, the farmer, do.

F. Yes; I have taken great liberty, I confess. But my object

Con. Ob.

INFIDELITY BROUGHT TO THE TEST OF

EXPERIMENT.

Mr. Godwin in writing the life of Mary Woolstencraft, meant without doubt, to recommeud infidelity to mankind, but happily for them, he has in these memoirs exhibited what may be termed a series of experiments, from which they may learn its tendency, both as to morals and happiness. In the beginning of the work he informs us that Mrs. Woolstencraft "had received few lessons of religion in her youth, and that her religion was almost entirely of her own creating"-that "she expected a future state, but would not allow her ideas of that future state to be modified by the notions of judgment and retribution.

which she did for half an hour without meeting a human being. She then leaped from the top of the bridge, but still seemed to find a difficulty in sinking which she en

Now let us hear the progress of this self-created religion. It led her, first, to remissness in at tending public worship; and, at length, to discontinue it entirely. Mr. Godwin indeed thinks "itdeavoured to counteract by pressmay be admitted as a maxim, that ing her clothes closely around her." She, however, was discovered, and taken out of the water.

no person, of a well furnished mind, that has shaken off the implicit subjection of youth, and is not the zealous partizan of a sect, can bring himself to conform to the public and regular routine of sermons and prayers.

Her religion was as chaste as it was devout. It allowed her to live as a wife with Mr. Inclay, without being married to him, and afterwards on the same terms with Mr. Godwin, to whom she was at length married, only to prevent her complete exclusion from decent society.

Her attachment to Inclay seems to have been violent. His neglect of her gave her most poignant distress. The religion of her own creating totally unlike that which God teaches, affording no resource for her wretched mind, she twice in the course of five months, resolved on suicide. One attempt to destroy herself is thus related by Godwin; "she took a boat, and rowed to Putney. It was night when she arrived at Putney, and by that time it had begun to rain with great violence. The rain suggested to her the idea of walking up and down the bridge till her clothes were thoroughly drenched and heavy with the wet

After having been for a considerable time insensible," continues her biographer, "She was recovered by the exertion of those by whom the body was found."

In

But let us hasten to the conclusion. She died in childbed. the detail of this awful scene, we have the following affecting passage: "Her religion as I have already shown, was not calculated to be the torment of a sick bed; and in fact, during her whole illness, not one word of a religious cast fell from her lips." In other words she died like an atheist. The paradoxical cast of her mind was visible in other things as well as in the affairs of religion. She ridiculed the fashion of the English women in keeping their chamber for a month, and for herself proposed "coming down to dinner on the day immediately following her being brought to bed;" but she was too ill to execute her design. The hour was at hand, the awful hour that was to put a period to all her visionary ideas, and all her opportunities of preparing for another world; yet she would still utter her philosophical reveries. Describing

what she had suffered, she told onomy. Keep the Sabbath day to sanctify it. Deut. 5, 12.

Godwin, "that she should have
died the preceding night but that
"she was determined not to leave
him." Such is the good sense,
such the piety and comforts of the
new philosophy. These are the
enlighteners of mankind. These
are the people who undertake to
cure us of our prejudice?
Chris. Ob.

PART II.

VIATOR.

THOUGHTS ON THE SABBATH DURING

THE JEWISH DISPENSATION.

The sanctification of the seventh day, which was appointed in the time of man's primeval innocence must have continued to be an Institution of constant obligation through the succeeding ages, which intervened between the fall of man and the publication of the moral law at Mount Sinai. Since we find no repeal of the original command in the books of Moses. When a summary of the moral law was promulgated to the Israelites, at the Holy Mount and inscribed by the finger of God on tables of stone, we find this original command of a sabbath, bearing a conspicuous part in the sacred code. The fourth commandment explains and enforces this first institution of God to man. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy; or, as it is expressed by Moses when recapitulating the commands in the book of Deuter

Let us then enquire, what are the duties of the day and what the limitations of those duties, as they are to be found in Scripture during the Jewish dispensation.

The fourth commandment shews that we are to abstain from our ordinary worldly calling and em. ployments, which it is our duty to pursue on the other six days with diligence. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God, in it thou shalt not do any work. Exodus, 20.9, 10.

We are commanded also to use. our endeavours that this day be sanctified by all over whom we have authority or influence.-"Thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man servant, nor thy maid servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates.

We are not, therefore, to permit the works of our ordinary worldly occupations to be carried on by others on our behalf; but we ought to put the same restraint upon those who are under our control which our duty requires us to put upon ourselves.

The Supreme Legislator has given us, by the prophet Isaiah, a still more ample account of the duties implied in the sanctification of the Sabbath. 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 hon orable, 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, &c. This passage of scripture deserves to be studied with peculiar attention, as it not only describes the duties of the day, but also the temper of mind with which they are to be performed. The Prophet arranges the command under three heads. The first is, that we are not to do our own ways, which relates chiefly, I apprehend, to our worldly business, as is largely set forth in the fourth commandment. The second, that we are not to find our own pleasure on the Sabbath. It is not to be a day of merriment, of sports, of pastimes, or of mere amusement. All those ways of spending the Sabbath, which are contrived for the purpose of sensual pleasure are to be avoided, though the temperate refreshment of the body is not forbidden. It is to be a day of rest from bodily labour; but not a season of mere animal recreation. It is unnecessary and indeed impossible, to enumerate the various species of pleasure which are forbidden on this day; but as every one knows what is meant by a day of sensual pleasure, so every one may know what is forbidden under this head.

Thirdly, we are forbidden to speak our own words. The con

versation ought to be suited to the sacred offices of the day. For as we are prohibited from pursuing our ordinary labours on the Sabbath, so are we also prohibited from making them the subject of our discourse, we cease from our own words, when we confine our conversation to subjects of a religious or moral nature, when we employ our time in instructing our dependents, our children and servants, or in edifying con versation with our equals. Though these three injunctions are expressed in the negative form; yet (according to a well known rule of interpreting scripture, a rule derived from the scriptures themselves) we must understand them as enjoining the opposite conduct. This beautiful passage of the Prophet teaches us also what aught to be the temper of our minds in these holy exercises. Far from being weary of the spiritual employment on the Sabbath, we ought to account them our pleasures, and call the Sabbath a delight, as well as holy of the Lord. This day we are to esteem honourable above all others. thus peculiarly to honour Hım, whose bounty created us, whose long suffering has preserved us, and whose unsearchable goodness has provided a way for our eternal redemption. Thus in the nature of the duty of sanctifying the sabbath pointed out with the utmost clearness. A limitation, however, is sometimes put, by the infirmi

We are

ties of our fallen nature, to some of the exercises which ought, when we are unrestrained to occupy us on this sacred day. Sickness may confine us to our beds, when we should otherwise be engaged in public worship; and, in such occasional interruptions, we may require the attention and assistance of others.

The Lord, by declaring that he prefers mercy to sacrifice, has pointed out our duty on these occasions... Whatever the necessities of our nature, as the relief of hunger, or aid in sickness, may require, must be considered as consistent with the sanctification of the Sabbath. Our Savior, by his precepts, and example, has completely illustrated this part of the subject.

the law of God as delivered by
Moses? Is it consistent with the
fourth commandment and with the
illustration of that commandment
by the holy prophets? The si-
lence of the Jewish rulers was a
tacit acknowledgement, that such
acts of mercy were consistent with
the due observance of the sab-
bath. If the ordinary employment
of any person consists in these acts
which the proper duties of the
Sabbath require, or which are al-
lowed on that day they certainly
cannot be considered as infring-
ments of the fourth commandment.
The blessed Jesus appealed to
the law of Moses on this head.-
"Have ye not read in the law,
how that on the Sabbath day, the
priests in the temple profane the
Sabbath and are blameless ?"-
Matt. 12. 5. Our Savior also
taught that it is consonant to the
law of God to take a due care e-
ven of the brute creation on the
Sabbath, much more of our fel-
low creatures; and on this ground
he reproved the indignant ruler
of the synagogue, who wished to
represent our Savior's healing of
the diseased as a work forbidden
"Thou

Here it is proper to observe,
that God sent forth his Son made
under the law. Christ lived and
died under the Jewish dispen-
sation. By his expositions of the
moral law he pointed out its real
nature and extent, but made no
-alterations in it. When he declar-
ed that acts of necessity and char-
ity were suitable to the Sabbath
the introduced no new doctrine on the Sabbath day.
but appealed to the Jews them-
selves respecting the truth of
what he taught. Jesus spake
sunto the lawyers and pharisees,
-saying, Is it lawful to heal on
the Sabbath day? And they held
their peace. Luke, 14. 3.

The question, undoubtedly was of this import: Is it agreeable to

hypocrite, doth each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him to watering ?" And again, to the lawyers and pharisees, "Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the Sabbath day?" And they could

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