monies from the different Fathers, to which we can do no more than refer. (P. 292, &c.) Strong, however, as these testimonies are to the fact, they do not amount, in our opinion, to an "incontrovertible" proof, as Mr. H. thinks, of the " Divine" as well as of the "Apostolic" appointment of the Sunday Sabbath. They shew incontestibly what the practice of the Church has been from the times of the Apostles, but do not prove that the Apostles enjoined the observance on the Church as a dictate of the Spirit. That some peculiar honour was ascribed to the first day of the week, from the earliest times of Christianity, is thus most evident; and this fact we consider to be a sufficient warrant to us. From the historical notices brought forward by Mr. Burnside, it appears, that cessation from work on the first day of the week, beyond the hours of divine service, was by no means general among the Christians of St. Jerome's time. Paula, an eminent devout lady of that period, is particularly described as going home from public worship, and engaging in needle-work: and St. Chrysostom, in one of his homilies, gives his audience leave to depart to their usual occupations. The Emperor Constantine, it is well known, first enjoined the observance of the Lord's day by civil enactments, in which agricultural operations were allowed, though other business was prohibited. From A. D. 600 to 1100, many enactments were made, both by civil and ecclesiastical authority, for the cessation from ordinary labour on the Lord's day, as well as upon other festivals. Markets and fairs were held on the former as well as the latter. And a similar spirit seems to prevail to the present times in Roman Catholic countries. The sentiments of some of the Reformers on this point are well known. Tindal, in his reply to Sir T. More, used these remarkable expressions: "We are lords of the Sabbath, and may change it to Monday or to any other day, or appoint every tenth day or two days in a week, as we find it expedient.' (Morer's Dialogues on the Lord's Day, p. 216.) Calvin once entertained a design for changing the day to Thursday, in order, as he said, to shew "an instance of Christian liberty," and in commemoration of the Ascension. The Remonstrants, especially Limborch, maintained very positively, that under the gospel, all distinction of days is done away, admitting only such observance as is necessary for the sake of order. Amidst, however, the conflicting parties,---the Sabbatarians, on the one hand, rigidly adhering to the Mosaic institution* Mr. Burnside says, the Sabbatarians observe their Sabbath from the evening of Friday till the evening of Saturday; and that he keeps it "as the Jews were ordered to keep it." pp. 265, 270. the Ultra-Reformers on the other claiming a liberty incompatible with ecclesiastical order and the respect due to established rites--it is impossible not to admire the moderation observed by our Church. It upholds the sanctity of the Christian Sabbath, but does not peremptorily insist on the Divine authority for the observance of the particular day. The Homily on the time and place of prayer, and a brief injunction in the canons, are, we believe, the only places where anything autho+ ritative on the subject is to be found. But in neither of these places is there any precise statement of the doctrinal ground of the duty. The Homily is certainly worded in such a way that the obligation is made imperative; but as to the precise ground.of that obligation, we can only infer, that the writer was a supporter of its divine authority, though he displayed all the caution and moderation which so eminently distinguished the school of our reformers, in not urging that opinion in express terms. Whilst, at the same time, we suggest a corresponding moderation of judgment on the point in dispute, let it be carefully remembered, that our observations refer only to the abstract principle of the institution of the Lord's day; and cannot, except by the most perverse opponent, be made out to infringe, in the smallest degree, on the indispensable obligation, under which all members of the Christian Church lie, of observing with religious exactness the institutions of that Church. With this view of exciting our fellow Christians to a faithful and spiritual observation of the fourth commandment as no inconsiderable portion of the decalogue, we do not hesitate to express our general approval of Mr. Holden's work, espe cially in its practical parts. The author's former production the Fall of Man has sufficiently stamped his character as a divine; and, in the present work, equally with the former, he appears as a writer of considerable power; evincing talents of no mean description, and an extensive acquaintance with the stores of theological learning. He comes forward with laudable zeal, as the advocate of a cause of the highest practical im portance and beneficial tendency to mankind; and, though we may not agree with him in all the stages of his argument, we cannot but say that he has fully succeeded in enforcing the duty to which he directs the public attention. Throughout the whole book, there is displayed a spirit of reasonable and enlightened piety; and the precepts and admonitions which he offers, are not less marked by strong uncompromising religious principle, than by judicious candour. If, however, we must speak of the work merely as critics, we should say, that, as an argumentative treatise, it would be much improved by compression. The conclusion appended to the sixth chapter contains a recapitulation of the argument, and a powerful and energetic appeal, grounded upon that argument, to the practical observance of the Lord's day. We will present a passage from it to our readers, and with that close our remarks. "A festival not more salutary to the rich than the poor, to the fortunate than the unfortunate, to the happy than the wretched, should ke kept sacred to its destination by all ranks and conditions of men. The devout observance of it is instrumental, I had almost said absolutely necessary, to the growth and cultivation of those holy sentiments and affections which should inhabit the bosom of the Christian. There is a lurking attachment in the heart to objects of sense; the world is ever displaying its fascinations to the view; the arch enemy of man is continually spreading his delusions before our path; and, if we wish to resist the influence of these seductions, the mind must be fortified by the offices of religion. If the sabbatical duties of piety be neglected, the principles of faith will languish, and the impressions of virtue, which have been imprinted in youth, will gradually wear away. By setting the affections on the things of this lower sphere, by dissolving in ease and pleasure, by too eagerly pursuing the honours and emoluments of the present life, the pure flame of religion will be extinguished. It can only be kept alive in the heart by withdrawing the thoughts at stated seasons from temporal things, by deep contrition for our past offences, by earnest supplication for pardon and acceptance through the merits of Christ, by a humble prostration of ourselves before the throne of grace, in fervent prayer for the sanctification of the Spirit. Withdrawing on every Lord's day from the tumultuous scenes of life, we must attend to the things which belong to our eternal peace; we must retire into our chambers to commune with our own hearts, to hold converse with our Maker, and to implore our heavenly Father to deliver us in all time of our tribulation, in all time of our wealth; in the hour of death, and in the day of judgment. Thus alone can the principle of faith be preserved pure and unsullied in the breast; thus alone can we become worthy of that Divine grace, without which our souls cannot be purified and harmonized for celestial blessedness." P. 507-509. A Remarks on certain Parts of Mr. Granville Penn's Comparative 8vo. THE investigations of geology have recently acquired a more general interest and importance than they have possessed at any former period, from the peculiar connexion which has been formed between them and the facts recorded in Revelation. But while, in some instances, the most clear and convincing proofs have been deduced from geological phenomena, attest ing the truth of the Scripture narrative, it must be confessed that in others, the indiscreet zeal of the friends of religion has carried them beyond the limits of fair deduction, and led them to adopt most imaginary hypotheses. Those who have been bent upon finding in Scripture a complete account of the structure of our globe, and an explanation of all the revolutions it has undergone, are constrained, either on the one hand to subject the words of the sacred writers to the most strange perversions, or to view geological facts through the disguising medium of most capricious theory. To repress such speculations is the laudable object of the anonymous writer of the small work before us; and his arguments are chiefly directed to fixing the sense of those passages of Scripture, which have been most extensively subjected to the sort of interpretation alluded to, according to the critical meaning of the original. The first chapter is devoted to an examination and refutation of the idea upheld by Mr. Faber and others, that the "days". of the creation were in reality periods of vast length. Mr. Faber reckons them as periods of 6000 years; arguing upon the geological data of successive formations, and the indefinite use of the word "day" in certain parts of Scripture. Our author refers very little, if at all, to the geological part of the argument, and confines his reasoning to the question of Hebrew criticism, and certain other inferences which are to be made from the Scripture account. One of the most striking of his arguments is given as follows:-- "The account here given of the cessation from creative action on the seventh day, by which is determined the exact period from which the Almighty did not continue to work, or, which is the same thing, when the operations of nature began; viz. after the sixth day, is as much a fact of history as the description of the different kinds of the work of God on the six preceding days. If, therefore, according to the author of the Treatise on the Three Dispensations, each of the six days of creation be allowed to consist of 6000 years, which six times 6000, or 36,000 years, had elapsed prior to the commencement of the seventh day, then must also the seventh day, or seventh period of 6000 years, have been ended previous to the eighth day, or the first day of twenty-four hours, actual diurnal time. Hence Adam, who was created during some portion of the sixth day, or sixth period of 6000 years, must have lived through the whole of the seventh day, or the seventh period of 6000 years; and, at the expiration of that seventh day, he would be upwards of 6000 years old. Consequently, although it is recorded of our first parent, that "all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died," he must have exceeded the age of 6930 years at the time of his death." P. 2. We, of course, do not pretend to follow our author into his details, but we must not omit to mention his positive assertion (p. 10), on the authority of the best Hebrew critics, with whose lore he is evidently very intimately acquainted, that the whole interpretation of the Mosaic days, as indefinite periods, is completely set aside, from the idiom of the language: the term here rendered day, D, never bearing or admitting any other meaning than that of a natural day of twenty-four hours. In the reasonings of those who go upon the geological data, it appears to us that there is one fundamental defect; viz. where is the necessity for supposing, that the periods of creation, described by Moses, are to be identified with the successive formations which geology indicates to have taken place on the surface of our planet? We can discover nothing even pretended by this party, but the very loose similarity in the circumstance, that both in the account of the sacred historian, and in the order of terrestrial rocks, vegetables precede animals, and marine animals those of the land species. Beyond this very general and loose resemblance, we can perceive no sort of analogy even, which can lead us to trace any connexion between what we read in the Book of Genesis, and what we trace in the strata of the earth. The argument appears to us nearly on a level with honest Fluellen's, about the river at Macedon, and the river at Monmouth; or, to be serious, we cannot see why the Mosaic account of the constitution of things, (subsequent to the original formation of the world itself in an indefinite period "the beginning,") should not refer solely to the newest formation; in which alone the remains (buried in its early convulsions) of plants and animals, similar both in genera and species to those now existing, are found; and which has not undergone more or greater convulsions than those which are the natural effect of a variety of causes acting incessantly upon all parts of the globe, and of that great and universal catastrophe so circumstantially recorded by Moses, and so exactly verified by the researches of modern geologists. Moreover, not only do we conceive the ground of argument insufficient, but there are several strong circumstances against the possibility of interpreting the Mosaic account to refer to the older formations. One of these is, that each successive formation, with all its peculiar organized structures, has not only been separately formed, but completely destroyed and buried, before the deposition of the next. Now, we contend, that no perversion of language can possibly twist the words of the first chapter of Genesis into any such meaning as shall allow us to suppose, that on each successive day a whole order of organized beings was first created, and then destroyed; and on the next day, the same order reproduced, together with the next class, only in their turn to be again destroyed, and again reproduced; till, on the sixth day, the whole work of creation must be under |