The National Register.
London, England, 1816-03-24 00:00:00

SIJNI)AY, MARCH 24, 181 G.

tal offence, &valise, according to the conjecture of Gro-
tins, this abuse of it was supposed to imply a disbelief of
creation for celebrating the conclusion of which the Sab-
bath was instituted. Instances have occurred in the
history of this people, where being attacked on the Sab-
bath day, they made no defence, choosing rather to
submit to certain destruction, than to transgress a posi-
tive commandment by o&ring resistance; and we learn
from the questions they put to our Saviour, with what
reverence they viewed it even at that late period. The
followers of Christ and his Apostles, though they changed
the (lay, continued the institution, and laid down the
true principles of its observance, which they strictly ad-
hered to in their own practice. When the corruptions of
Christianity began to prevail, the Sabbath depending
only on positive appointment, was the first institu-
tion that sufferial front ignorance and perversity. It
was no longer a day set apart for receiving 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.
The Reformation restored this divine institution to its
former objects, and converted it into the most effective
instruments of human improuements; but the first re-
limners in renouncing the abuses to which popery had
subjected it, passed to the other extreme, of formality and
restraint. The severest laws were enacted against 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 service r in some places
the windows of private houses were ordered to be shut up :
and, in short, every method was taken to associate reli-
gions improvements with penance, mortification and
gloom.

The Puritans, in the time of Charles 1. 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 saying of a learned judge,
they were disposed to prevent, even the working of small-
beer upon the Sunday, ifthey could have accomplished it.

other days of the week. When we walk within and
around this metropolis,—when the see erery vehicle and
animal that can be tZnind engliFed to curry its population
from their homes and their duties,—when we observ:, the
haunts of pleasure full, and the places of worship almost
deserted,—when we hear the noise of riot fix* tie nu.
merous houses ()flow dissipation,—and consider the insig-
nificant prfreortion of the poor, and the labouring classes
oF the community that take the benefit of rel4;tous 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 contimu., where the Christian Sabbath is
(oily considered as a festival, or day of amusement, and
honoured only with full sights, with horse-races, with
tire-works, with reviews, with concerts, and dramatic ex-
hibitions. If the people of England should ever arrive
at this state of dis.ipution, Crewell 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 futility be granted to the tewerorders
tier attending divine service ; let every inducement be
held out to them to enter the temples of their Maker.
Sunday is peculiarly allotted for them,—they stand most
in need of its instructions, and if its advantages be pro-
perly improved, they must rise in the scale of virtue and
intelligence. The &hi in which the ministers of the
Gospel are allowed to expatiate is extensive,--the topics
they are called to discuss are su numerous, both in his-
tory, govermnent and philosophy,—the moral and divine
truths which they are required to expound and enforce
arc so important, and so universally interesting, that in
the dis.•ourses from the pulpit, a great portion of human
knowledge may be communicated to those, who, under
other systems, would hare remained in hopeless igno-
rance. The Christian religion, from its professed reve-
lations, its prophetic and historical character, fitrnishes
an opportunity of going hack to the origin of the world,
of tracing' the migrations and Ix>livical coneition of the
first inhabitants of the earth,—of following the fin-tunes
of a particular people through a long succession of ages,
--of surveying the pmgress ofmoral improvement, wider
the influence of new eircumstame•.--(XobS,zrVing the in-
tentions of (;eel in his great dispn.:Litions of judgment
and tuere,y,—a ea-Omitting the nature, the relatiuus, and
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