day, on which he rose from the dead, the queen, the greatest of all days, in which our life arose." * Mr. Evanson says, that he sees nothing in the account that Justin Martyr gives of the business done in Christian churches on the Lord's day, that could "be reasonably supposed to have usually taken up more than an hour and a half at the utmost." But our Sunday services at present do not in general employ more time, in either part of the day; and Justin might think it sufficient to mention what was done in one part, especially that in which the Lord's supper was administered, as that would comprise every thing that was done in Christian assemblies, concerning which he wished to give his readers satisfaction. Mr. Evanson also says, that contrary to my conclusion, (viz. that the assembly described by Justin Martyr was held in mid-day,)" the circumstance" of the administration "of the Lord's supper very clearly ascertains the time of holding it to have been in the evening. For," he adds, " from St. Paul's Epistles, Pliny's Letter, and even from the passage you yourself have quoted from that father of the Romish church, Cyprian, it is evident, that during the three first centuries, the evening was the only time of celebrating the Eucharist, or Lord's supper. Such a meeting, therefore, could not at all interfere with the usual business of the day." But Mr. Evanson needs not to be informed that the Jewish evening service was at our three in the afternoon, and that the service of this time of the day is still, in imitation, no doubt, of more ancient times, called the evening service. Mr. Evanson quotes Clemens Alexandrinus, as condemning the setting apart of any particular time for the purpose of public worship, when he says, "We are commanded to worship God through Jesus Christ, not on chosen days, as some others do, but continually, through our whole life.-Wherefore a well-informed Christian worships God, not in any stated place, nor chosen temple, nor on any festivals and appointed days, but through his whole life, in every place, Μηκε τιεν σαββατίζωμεν Ιεδαίκως, και αργίας χαίροντες· ὁ μη εργαζόμενο γαρ μη εσθιέτω; εν ίδρωτι γαρ το προσωπο σε φάγη τον αρτον σε, φασι τα λογια αλλ' έκας ο ὑμων σαββατίζετω πνευματικώς, μελετῃ νομε χαίρων, ου σωματος ανεσει, δημιεργίαν Θεο θαυμάζων, ουκ έωλα εσθίων, και χλιαρα πίνων, και μεμετρημενα βαδίζων, και ορχήσει και κροτοις νουν ουκ εχεσι χαίρων και μετα τῳ σαββατισαι, ἑορτάζετω πας φιλόχοις (α την κυριακην, την αναςασιμον, την βασιλίδα, την ύπαδον πασων των ἡμερων· ἐν ᾧ καὶ ἡ ζωη Hμwv aveteike. Id. interp. Sect. ix. p. 56, (P.) ↑ Arguments, p. 132. (P.) Ibid. pp. 134, 135. (P.) whether he chance to be alone, or in company with other believers." But, besides observing that this writer makes no mention of the Lord's day, but only of festivals and appointed days in general, to interpret what he here says in consistency with what he says elsewhere, of "all true Christians observing the Lord's day, and therein glorifying the resurrection of Christ on that day;"† he could only mean that Christians do not confine their worship to that day. This day was certainly never considered by the early Christians as a sabbath, or a day of necessary rest from labour; but it was deemed sacred, and was soon celebrated as festival days were; and whether the custom, adopted by Christians in imitation of the Heathens, of ornamenting their houses, as a token of festivity on that day, was approved or disapproved by Tertullian, (on which Mr. Evanson lays so much stress,)+ makes no difference in my argument, since the practice shews that this day was by them distinguished from other days. He might condemn the manner in which it was done; but it is sufficiently evident, from the passage I have quoted from this writer, that he did not disapprove the thing itself. What reason, then, had I for quoting him, as Mr. Evanson more than insinuates, unfairly for this purpose? I agree entirely with Mr. Evanson that civil governors ought not to interfere in this business, which, as it relates to religion, is out of their proper province. Let no man be compelled to observe the Lord's day in any manner that he does not himself choose; but let every man be left at perfect liberty to work or rest as he pleases; and in my opinion. harvest work ought not to be neglected on that day, in so uncertain a climate as ours. Were I a minister in a country place, where the chief dependence of my congregation should be upon farming, I would choose to have public worship early in the morning, and late in the evening, and exhort my hearers to make the most of the middle part of the day, in taking care of their hay and their corn.§ But I would not give Arguments, pp. 152, 158. (P.) + Supra, p. 334. Arguments, p. 141. (P.) See supra, p. 339, Note t On this passage Mr. Evanson remarks," that whatever right farmers have to break through the customary sabbatical rest in one season of the year, for their peculiar profit or convenience, the very same right have they and every order of men, to employ the leisure hours of Sunday for similar purposes in every season of the year." Mr. E. adds, that “ were the observance of a sabbath among Christians an ordinance of the Christian religion, no man could have the authority to violate or dispense with it on any occasion." See "A Letter to Dr. Priestley's Young Man," 1794, p. 2. See supra, p. 337. " up the idea of the sanctity of that day, in some proper sense of the word, or the appropriation of a considerable part of it to the purposes of public instruction and public worship. If I may judge from my own experience, much more time is necessary to teach and to inculcate the principles of Christianity, than Mr. Evanson supposes. The mere teaching indeed, if that be confined to the elements of Christianity, might, no doubt, be dispatched, as he says, in an hour; but repeated impressions are necessary to form and to strengthen religious habits; and the business of the world is such, that if the views of Christianity were not frequently presented to the mind, we should soon lose sight of them entirely, and become as worldly-minded as those who never heard of Christianity. Hence the necessity of repeated exhortation. And as the knowledge of what directly or indirectly relates to religion may well employ a Christian minister the whole week, so the communication of what he may judge to be useful to his hearers may well employ a considerable part of one day in it. Mr. Evanson, in answer to what I observed of the collection for the poor Jewish Christians being made in the church of Corinth every Lord's day, in order to prevent the necessity of any collection being made when he should himself visit them, says that mag' auro, must imply that the money was kept in the benefactor's own custody, and not deposited in any common fund. This I own to be the usual sense of the Greek phrase; but, as the purpose for which Paul wrote could not have been answered by this method, and such collections, whenever they are mentioned in later times, were made on that day, I rather think, either that the apostle did not express himself accurately, or that the common is not the universal sense of the phrase. Yet Mr. Evanson says, "I would as soon mispend my time in attempting to prove that the sun shone at noon to a person who should persist in affirming it to be then midnight darkness," as to contend with me for maintaining what I have done with respect to this circumstance. Very little, however, depends upon this passage with regard to our main argument ;§ and Mr. Evan • Supra, p. 342. + Arguments, pp. 155, 156. (P.) ↑ Mr. Evauson's words are: "As I would contend with any one who will assert, that an express precept for a man to lay by money in his own custody, signifies that he should deposit it in the custody of another person." Ibid. p. 156. § On this passage it has been remarked by a writer before quoted, "It were much to be wished, that so pious a custom as a weekly meeting, not only to worship God, but to inquire into the wants of poor brethren, to take a repast in common, and to receive letters from different places under circumstances of distress, were son's reasoning would have no less force, if it was unmixed with such contempt for that of his adversary. If Mr. Evanson will take the pains to inform himself, he will find that, notwithstanding the rigorous abstinence of the Jews from all labour, and even from lighting a fire on the sabbath day, they always did, and still do, contrive to spend that day as a festival, and that they make entertainments on it, in preference to other days. If he have not Reland's Jewish Antiquities, of which the late Riots have deprived me, so that I cannot have recourse to that author at present; or, if he suspect, as he evidently does, that I did not quote him fairly, let him look into Buxtorf's Synagoga Judaica, in which he will find a very copious account of the Jewish method of entertaining themselves on the sabbath; or if he make inquiry of any living Jew, he will find, that my former account was perfectly correct. Cotelerius in his note on the passage of Ignatius quoted above, says, Certè in proverbium abiit sabbatarius luxus; that is, "The luxury of the sabbath became proverbial." As luxury implies excess, it is certainly not to be justified on any day; but social and cheerful entertainments, such as are not improper on other days, are by no means inconsistent with the acts of religion required of the Jews on the sabbath, or of Christians on the Lord's day.† continued to this day, instead of a superstitious observation, for which we have no Christian authority, which, from the name we have given it, and the source from which some of us derive it, we are absolutely forbidden to impose on our brethren, aud which is either found irksome, or altogether neglected by many well-disposed Christians." Letter to the Author of Thoughts, &c. pp. 47, 48. * See ibid. pp. 19-24. Mr. Evanson, however, quotes a contrary opinion from a modern Jew. Letter, 1794, p. 53. See infra. The first Discourse in Watts's "Holiness of Times, Places, and People," 1738, (noticed p. 334, Note §,) is entitled, "The Sabbath Perpetual and the Lord's Day Sacred." The following pious and liberal conclusion of that Discourse is well worthy of being here recorded: "Since the observation of the Lord's day is not built upon any express and plain institution by Christ or his apostles in the New Testament, but rather on examples and probable inferences, and on the reasons and relations of things; I can never pronounce any thing hard or severe upon any fellow-christian, who maintains real piety in heart and life, though his opinion may be very different from mine on this subject. Nor does any man, who is humbly and sincerely studious of truth and duty, and desirous to find it, deserve any reproach or censure upon the account of different opinions about meats and days; unless he assume such haughty airs of assurance, as arise far beyond all his evidence and proof, or indulge a persecuting spirit, and reproach his brethren who differ from him. "Whatsoever we do in our distinct practices, on these dubious subjects, let us do it sincerely as to the Lord: if we regard a day, let us regard it to the Lord; and if we neglect it for fear of superstition, let this also be with a desire to honour the Lord. Rom. xiv. 6. Let religion be maintained in the life and power of it, by every one that names the name of Christ, and let him faithfully pursue those methods which, according to the clearest discoveries of reason and scripture, will be most successful to obtain this end." Works, III. p. 141. 352 LETTERS TO A YOUNG MAN, PART II. OCCASIONED BY Mr. Evanson's Treatise ON THE DISSONANCE OF THE FOUR GENERALLY-RECEIVED Vultus erat multa et præclara minantis. Dic aliquid dignum promissis. HORACE, L. ii. Sat. iii. [London, 1793.] PREFACE. NOTHING was ever more unexpected by me than that I, or, indeed, that any other person, should, at this day, have occasion to enter into a discussion of the subject of these Letters; as nothing seemed to be better established than the authenticity of almost all the canonical books of the New Testament, no unbeliever having, of late years, hinted a suspicion to the contrary, and every reasonable doubt having been removed by such laborious and candid writers as Mr. Jones and Dr. Lardner, not to mention several others, whose works could not be unknown to Mr. Evanson. That such books were extant in, or very near to, the time in which the events recorded, or alluded to, in them happened, so that it was impossible but that the truth might be known with respect to them, there is abundantly more evidence than there is of any other historical books whatever having been written and published in the same circumstances. "And the Evidence of their respective Authenticity examined. By Edward Evanson, A.M." Ipswich, 1792. There was a second edition in 1805, of which the author corrected the proof sheets, "till within two days" of his death. See Mon. Repos. I. p. 60, Note. |