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    and power , the goodness and righteousness , of God , in the admirable formation and government of the world . But , because our minds are feeble and liable to forget fulness and distraction , God , in kind condescension to our infirmitv , se * apart one day from the

    rest , arid commands it to be free from all earthly business and cares , that nothing may obstruct the holy attention of the mind . With this view he ordained * nor merely that individuals should observe in private this rest from their labours , but that they should assemble in the sanctuary ,

    there to offer prayers and sacrifices , and improve in the knowledge of religion from the interpretation of the law . So far , the need of a Sabbath is common to us and to the ancient

    Israelites , that we may for one day be free [ from worldly concerns , ] and may thus be better prepared for improvement in religious knowledge , and for the serious profession of our faith . " In Exod . xx . 8 .

    It was from no unhandsome design to steal * an advantage that , in the passage on which Dominieus does me the honour to remark , 1 did not class Calvin among- * ' Sabbath-breakers . " for , though his views of the sanctificarion of the Lord ' s-day were , so to

    for as appear ^ me , defective and introductory to very melancholy consequences , he did certainly hold that the whole obligation of the fourth commandment was not superseded by

    Christianity , and that it binds us to special religious observances on that day , and to such means as promote a corresponding state o £ mind : and I can find no intimation whatever in

    his writings , that he approved of festivities and recreations on the LordV day I . am obliged to Dommicns for referring to the passage in Mather ' s Life of Eliott , with which I was not before acquainted : nor can I

    ascertain to what foreign Protestant writers Dr . Owen alludes , who called the puritanical dot trine of the Lord ' sday , an English fane ?/ . But I could adduce some of the most estimable Dutch divines , whose sentiments are in accordance-with that which Demi

    niau disapproves . Van Mastridht , in enumerating the duties included in the sanctification of the LordVday , puts : ii * . tf ) 4-- .. fihrsti clnss , " a cessation

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    from all our own works , which are such as have for their object worldlygain , the ordinary labours of our calling ,- unnecessary travelling , feastings and carnal recreations . " TheoL Moral . Lib . ii . Cap . xv . Sect . 3 , 5 .

    Hoornbeck , a contemporary of Dr . Owen , at the close of a Disquisition on the Sabbath , has this paragraph : ** We are aware that the authority of Calvin has been brought against this doctrine ; to which Walaeus ( Dm . de

    Sabb . Cap . v . ) answers ; ' The passages which are by some invidiously produced -were written by ^ Calvin , neither against himself nor against his colleagues and fellow-labourers in the Reformation , with whom he never

    had any controversy on this subject ; but against certain Papists and scholastic writers . * TheopKilus F * hUo-Kyriaces ( who in 1639 published a work on the Lord ' s Day *) , goes farther , and thinks it right to dissent from Calvin ' opinion on that subject . ' No man / says he > * will be surprised if he should find that to have befalleft

    Calvin , which often happens to the diligent husbandman : in attempting the extirpation of weeds , he tears up some of the corn with them /"Exercit . TheoL IL 117 . Putting all these things together , I venture to think that the author of

    " . The Scripture Testimony to the Messiah , " is not chargeable with that want of candour which Dominieus seems to impute to him . Another of your Correspondents , JBrevis , [ p . 414 , ] does not appear to have considered that there is reason

    to believe that a word has beeii lost out . of the Hebrew text of 1 Sa ' nf . xx . 12 . That " Jehovah , God of Israel , " is not the language of invocation , but is the nominative to a verb which is wantingy is manifest from the subsequent » d . In K / L'tmicott's No . 5 60 * a manuscript which he assigns fo the xiiith . cent . > n is found in the text

    before mns and the same word is added in the margin of his No . £ & 4 , an earlier manuscript , whichJuilfenthal considers as a transcript ffom one of extraordinary antiquity , and value , and free from the m ' asoretic

    * An English translation of the book * witli a recommendatory Preface l > y Mr . Bfr * ter > was published in 1672 . < t gives no information of the author ' s real na&e .

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    Calvin ' s Notion of the Sabbath * 4 $ Q

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1819, page 489, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1775/page/29/