The National Register.
London, England, 1816-03-25 00:00:00

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Our laitto, Cou6titution anb itat34.

MONDAY, AfARCI-I at. 1816.

tal offence, because, according to the conjecture of Gm-
tins, this abuse of it was supposed to imply a disbelief of
creation, for celebrating the conclusion of whi..l? the Sab-
bath was instituted. Instances have occerred in the
history of this people, where being attacked on the Sab-
bath day, they made no defer.~•c, choosing rather to
submit to certain destruction, than to transgress a posi-
tive commandment !,), offering resistenx ; and we learn
from the questions they put to oar Saviour, with what
reverence they viewed it even at that late period. The
followoes of Christ and his Apostles, though they chaineeed
the (ley, contiened the institution, sod laid down the
true principles of its observance, whir!' they strictly ad-
hered to in their own practice. Whets he corruptions of
Christianity begun to prevail, the Sabbath, depending
only on positive appointment, was the first institu-
te it that suffered ::tom ignorance and perversity. It
was no longer a day set apart fur receiviuu• instruction,
and forwarding the interests of enlightened piety, but :
became a season devoted to the exhibition of unmean-
ing pageantry, or the licentiousness of dissolute pleasures.
Ttie Reformation restored this divine institution to its
former objects, and converted it into the most effictive
ittetruments of human improvements; but the first Re-
formers, in renouncing the abuses to which topery had
subjected it, passed to the other extreme, of formality and
restraint. The severest laws were enacted n;etanst Sab-
bath
breakers; the most innocent enjoyments were pro-
scribed ; no person was allowed to appear on the streets
or the high roads, during divine aefyice : in some places
the windows of private houses were ordered to be shut up :
and, in short, every method was taken to associate reli-
gious improvemeuts with penanc4, mortification and
gloom.
The Puritans, in the time of Charles I. and of the
Commonwealth, had proceeded so far in this literal inter-
pretation of the command, in this unnecessary and morose
strictness, that, according to the sayilag of a learned judge,
they were disposed to prevent even fhe workivg of small-
beer upon the Sunday, if they could have accomplished it.
Our ideas and character are now changed, and it is to be
feared, that there is at present too little distinction made
between the day appropriated for divine worship, and the
other days of the week. When we walk within and
around this metropolis,—when we see every vehicle and
animal that can be found engaged to carry its population
from their homes and their dutics,—when we observe the
haunts of pleasure full, and the places of worship almost
deserted,—when we hear the noise of riot from the nu-
merous houses of low dissipation,—and consider the insig-
ni;lcant proportion of the poor, and the labouring classes
of the community that tale the benefit of religious in-
struction, or devote their leisure to the concerns of their
spiritual nature, we may see reason to dread that this
country is hastening to the situation of the Catholic na-
tions of the continent, where the Christian Sabbath is
only considered as a festival, or day of atauecment, and
honoured only with bull-fights, with horse-races, with
fire-works, with reviews, with concerts, and dramatic ex-
hibitions. If the people of England should ever arrive
at this state of dissipation, farewell to our national gran-
deur, our public virtue, our constitutional liberties. The
foundation of them was laid by our revered ancestors in
religion; upon this foundation they have stood, amid the
tempests ofrevolution ; and, by its removal, they will be
shaken and overturned.
Let, then, every facility he granted to the lowerorders
foe attendiug divine service ; let every inducement be
held out to them to enter the temples of their Maker.
Sunday is peculiarly allotted fin• them,—they stand most
in need of its instructions, and if its advantages be pne.
perly improved, they must rise in the scale of virtue and
intelligence. The field in which the ministers of the
Gospel are allowed to expatiate is so extensive,—the topics
they are called to discuss are so numerous, both in his-
tory, government and philosophy,—the moral and divine
truths which they are required to expound and enforce
are so important, and so universally interesting, that in
the discourses from the pulpit, a great portion of human
knowledge may be communicated to those, who, under
other systems, would have remained in hopeless igno-
rance. The Christian religion, from its professed rove-
! lations, its prophetic and historical character, furnishes
t an opportunity of going buck to the origin of the world,
• of tracing the migrations and political condition of the
i first inhabitants of the earth.—of following the fortunes
t of a particular people through a long sueeeseivn of ages,
--of surveying the progress of morai improvement, under
• the influence of new circumstances,—of observing the in-
. tentions of God in his great dispensations of judgesent
• and wercy,—of explaining the mature, the relations, and