Review-Simpson's Two Essays. statement our author appeals to Matt. xii. 8. Mark ii. 28. Luke vi. 5; which texts he understands as referring specifically and exclusively to Christ. And he judges it inconsistent with the habitual prudence of our Lord to suppose that he would have frequently endangered his life, by correcting the abuses of the sabbath, if such an ordinance was to cease when the kingdom of the Messiah was established. Our Saviour, in the opinion of the Essayist, authorized his apostles to change the day on which it was kept from the seventh to the first day of the week. This he conceives him to have done after his resurrection, though "the brief narratives of the evangelists do not particularize every single precept that our master gave relative to religion and morals, even before his crucifixion." The accounts of his instructions after his resurrection, are still more concise. He sometimes taught by symbolical actions, instead of giving verbal precepts. To this method he had recourse as to the sabbath day. For example, the Jews being habituated to instruction by visible representation, he chose, by the clear and decisive action of his repeated presence with his apostles at the time of their assembling on the day of his resurrection, the first day of the week, to authorize and countenance them in appointing and appropriating this particular day, instead of the Jewish Sabbath, on the seventh day, for the worship of God. There are passages in the New Testament which prove that it was so employed by the apostles and the earliest believers: the most credible authors likewise bear testimony to the continuation of the practices of assembling on the first day of the week for public worship, and of then partaking in the Lord's Supper and making charitable collections for the indigent. Accordingly, this day was soon distinguished by the appellation of the Lord's day. Towards the conclusion of the Essay, Mr. Simpson puts these questions, "Though there is no express verbal precept for a sabbath on the Lord'sday, can arguments be found equally strong with those which have been produced, for the religious observance of any other day of the week by Christians? Are not these reasons sufficiently clear and powerful to sway the judgment and to direct the conduct?" 227 He points out the valuable ends to be answered by such an observance of the day, corresponding with that on which Jesus, our Master, rose from the dead, and finishes his undertaking by a reply to the objection," that publie worship and rest from the common business of life one day in every seven, occasions such a frequent suspension of labour, as to injure both the rich and the poor." In a devotional and moral view "a discontinuance of regular public acts of Christian piety, and of public instruction from the scriptures" would be exceedingly injurious. "Nor would either individuals or the community derive any worldly advantage from the additional labour of the poor on the first day of the week." This position the enlightened author argues from a comparison of the general stock of labour with the rate of wages and from the average measure of human strength: his reasoning here, is highly satisfactory to us; and we cannot but pronounce it at once ingenious and convincing. We are far more desirous of giving a faithful epitome of the sentiments of Mr. Simpson than of declaring and vindicating our own. So much however has been said and written on the subject of the latter of the essays contained in this pamphlet, that our readers will, probably, expect the present article of review to be something more than analytical. For the most part, we agree in the conclusions of the worthy and judicious writer. But we have always hesitated, and still hesitate, to employ such language as The Christian SABBATH. The object of the investigation and controversy before us, is to ascertain whether a sabbatical institution be obligatory under the Gospel? Now it is not a little remarkable that, except in cases which refer, evidently and immediately, to the observance of the seventh day by the Jews, the word sabbath has no place in the New Testament. In this discussion no passage of Scripture is so important as Coloss. ii. 16. Let no man judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days!" 66 It becomes us to notice Mr. Simpson's translation of a sentence from Justin Martyr (Apol. 1st ed. Thirlby, p. 98). According to the Essayist, this father" affirms that he observed the 223 Review.-Miss Williams on the Persecution in France. The words SUNDAY SABBATH, &c " in the original are, την δε του ήλιου ἡμέραν κοινῇ πανίες την συνελευσιν ποιούμεθα, κ. τ. λ. In the 97th page Justin makes a statement to the same effect. From neither of the passages do we learn that these early Christians observed the first day of the week sabbatically, but only that they then assembled for the purposes of social religious worship and instruction. Mr. S. therefore would, on re-consideration, have forborne to speak of the Sunday SABBATH. This investigation, assuredly, is not unimportant; the different opinions of men concerning the proper result of it having a strong influence on their practice. We could wish to moderate between the contending parties; cach of whom, we think, has somewhat. mistaken the real nature of the question, and failed of doing justice to the views and reasonings of their autagonists. On the one hand, we plead for the consecration of no scanty por tion of the Lord's day to social, worship, &c. on the other, we are of opinion that the strictly sabbatical ob servance of it is not enjoined by either the precepts or the spirit of Christianity. There is great force in the arguinents brought by Mr. S. to establish the position that from an early period of the world mankind were in the habit of dedicating every seventh day more immediately to the public homage of the Creator: wearé convinced that it was the custom of Christians in the apostolic age to assemble for this purpose on the first day of the week, or the Lord's day; and such is the nature of man, such the state of society, that, in Mr. Simpson's Janguage, "the usual habits of labour and amusement on other days, if continued on a day appropriated to religious objects, would prevent or dimi. nish the good effects of public devotion and instruction, by diverting the mind to a quite different train of ideas." These, we take leave to say, are our sentiments, and our practice is agree able to them. At the same time, nothing which rests solely on deduction should be represented as a doctrine or institution of revealed religion: nor should he who observeth the Lord's day sabbatically, condemn him who in that manner observeth it not. If weight be allowed to names, we could enumerate some of highly respectable di vines who have declined to speak con- Our readers will permit us to add, that J. D. Michaelis looked on the Sabbath day as an ante-mosaical institution; yet believed that, among the Jews, and in its original purity, it was not intended to be a day of rigour. In concluding this article, we inust again offer our humble tribute of respect to the memory of the author of these Essays. Il pense et fait penser. He was himself a diligent inquirer after religious truth; and he excites and assists inquiry in others. ART. II.-On the late Persecution of the title-page is well known as fession," meaning, we suppose, her In the language which is now fashionable at Paris, Miss Williams refers to Buonaparte as "the tyrant". * Commentaries on the Laws of Moses, (Translated by Dr. A. Smith) Vol. iii, 156, &c. Review-Miss Williams on the French Persecution: from whose oppression the world is freed; yet she confesses (we can use no better word) that under him and "amidst all the various phases of the French Revolution, the star of religious liberty had moved calinly in its majestic orbit and cheered despairing humanity with a ray of celestial radiance. Amidst the violations of every other principle," she says, "the domain of conscience appeared to be consecrated ground, where tyranny feared to tread." No sooner, however, did the legitimates, in the popular phraseology, regain the ascendancy, than religious persecution burst out in all its horrors: an odd symptom, surely, of deliverance from oppression! Let the fair author speak for herself. "The French Protestants had, during a long succession of years, been seen with brow erect in the senate, in the legislature, the army, at court-in every ceremonial of state holding their equal rank and marshalled beside their Catholic brethren. "But what became of the dream of personal security, and the proud consciousness of undisputed rights, when the ear was suddenly appalled by new and strange exclamations? We are despoiled, we are devoted to slaughter, we are the victims of our profession of the faith of our fathers ―of that faith once delivered to the saints! "The persecutors of the nineteenth cen tury have not entered into the niceties of religious belief; they have not, in the indulgent spirit of their predecessors under Lewis XIV. proposed the alternative of La messe ou la mort, Repent, or perish; become Catholics, or we kill you; they have proceeded at once to execution: their victims were marked, and they have plundered and murdered as their fury directed, whereever they found Protestant property, or persons professing the Protestant faith. "Nor was it now on the inhabitants of villages, such as the abodes of the obscure and disseminated Vaudois, that these horFors were inflicted; the citizens of opulent towns and their popular vicinages, have become the martyrs. Nismes has been the centre of this desolation, from whence it has spread into the country around, even to that which has been noted as the citadel of Protestantism in France, the mountains of the Cevénnes. "From whatever cause this violence proceeded, the Protestants alone have been the victims. Were it a local insurrection against property or lives, such as sometimes has desolated parts of France during the Revolution, the assailants would not have been so discriminate in their choice. It is on Protestants only that their rage has fallen; and the selection of the professors of this VOL. XI. faith 2 H 229 appears to them an unequivocal proof that it was an organized religious persecution. There is something so strange to all our habitudes and feelings, so horrible in the sound of religious persecution, that we cannot help doubting the fact, though it be committed at our very doors. We were for a long time incredulous, and, what added to our incredulity on this subject, was, that this persecution should have taken place while the country was in possession of the Protestant powers of Europe, by either of which it might instantly have been crushed." Pp. 6-8. Miss Williams, with the rest of the world, is incredulous no longer. But why did not the Protestant powers of Europe interfere? They were too busy, says our author, in a subdued tone of sarcasm; and "no French army existed." Even Napoleon's army, then, would, if in existence, have speedily crushed the persecution. The Protestant powers were unconcerned spectators while the knife was held to the throats of their fellow-protestants; but, it should have been added, that the troops of Austria, a Catholic power, did on one occasion step beyond their commission to check the crusaders of the south. A little of the same virtuous irregularity on the part of the Duke of Wellington and Lord Castlereagh would have effectually kept under the French bigots both in the court and the country. In a long passage, forming a considerable part of the pamphlet, too oratorical to be instructive, Miss Williams' pencils a rapid sketch of the varying fortunes of the French Protestants from the Reformation to the Revolution. She relates that during the momentous period comprehended under the latter term, the Catholic clergy made overtures to the Protestants for a junction of the two churches! The proposal came to nothing, though the Catholic prelate chiefly concerned was complaisant, and the Protestant minister who treated with him was flexible. "We were acquainted," says Miss Williams, "with the flexibility of our Protestant friend." Is M. Marron the person here intended? and is there here a sly allusion to his flexibility on a later occasion? Instead of an alliance between Catholics and Protestants, one of a different description took place between Buonaparte and the Pope, which produced the celebrated Concordat, 230 Review-Miss Williams on the French Persecution. Such is part of the history of "The Tyrant," the attachment of the Protestants to whom (though scarcely equal to the common measures of decent gratitude) is a crime to be expiated with blood! "The Royal family of France returned. By some oversight in the King's Charter, there was mention of a state-religion, and the Protestants consequently were obliged to sink back to Toleration." P. 38. An " oversight"! Miss Williams has surely forgotten the meaning of English words. Such an abuse of language is happily disgusting to English understandings and English hearts. secure But the Protestants were 66 in the virtues of the monarch," " the protection of a pious and philosophical prince." The philosophy of Louis may be determined by the "oversight,' and as to his piety, that may be estimated by processions and persecutions. How the Protestants felt at first is doubtful; but how do they now feel? If we may judge by our own feelings, sitting in the security of laws, they entertain sentiments more intolerable than persecution itself, whilst doomed to hear the slavish and hypocritical cant of Bourbon piety and philosophy! The department of the Gard became convulsed, and such convulsion, by Miss Williams's own shewing, was neither unnatural nor unexpected. It was ascribed to political contests; "But it was at length recognised that when the troubles which had prevailed in other provinces were hushed into peace, the department of the Gard was still the scene of violence and horror. It was found that some evil of a darker hue, and more portentous meaning than the desultory warfare of political parties, hung over the devoted city of Nismes. A fanatical multitude, breathing traditionary hatred, was let loose: -the cry of "Down with the Hugonists" resounded through the streets. Massacre and pillage prevailed; but Protestants alone were the victims. The National Guard of Nimes, composed of its most respectable citizens, had been dissolved, and a new enrolment of six times the number had taken place, and in which many of the fanatics had found admission. Here, and here only, by some cruel fatality, the national guard betrayed its trust, and abandoned its noble functions of protecting its fellow-citizens. In vain the unhappy Protestants invoked its aid, no arm was stretched out to shelter or to save them!-their property was devastated without resistance, and their murderers were undisturbed. complaints of the Protestants assailed its "The government caught the alarm; the ear, and General La Garde was sent to Nismes to command the military force of the department, and protect the Protes tants. "On his arrival at Nismes, General La Garde ordered the temples to be opened, which was announced to the public at eight o'clock on the Sunday morning. The summons was obeyed with alecrity by the Protestants. They had long been deprived of the consolation of assembling together, ble are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts!' and they felt with the Psalmist, How amiz "The church was crowded, but the congregation was almost entirely composed of the higher order of citizens; who perhaps felt the obligation that their situation inposed on them of shewing an example of fast and firm adherence to the faith which courage, and publicly displaying their stead they professed. It appeared that a highfeeling of what was right and fit towards toned sentiment of duty, an enlightened the community, an abnegation of self, were in this awful conjuncture associated with that piety by which they were no doubt strengthened; that sublime confidence, which looks calmly down on the injustice of earth, making its appeal to heaven. "The holy service began; but what must when in less than half an hour their solerahave been the emotions of the auditory, nities were interrupted by the horrible vociferations of a frantic populace, and loud and repeated strokes assailed the doors, in the minister, continued the service with a order to burst them open. M. Juillera, firm voice, and the congregation listened those who feel that their witness is in heawith that calm, which is the privilege of became horrible: the preacher ceased, and ven. The uproar increased; the tumult his auditors recommended themselves to God. I held my little girl in my hand,' writes Madame Juillera, the wife of the whom I am personally acquainted: "I held minister, a woman of a superior mind, with my little girl in my hand, and approached the foot of the pulpit,-my husband rejoined us,-I thought of my nursing boy, whom I had left at home, and should embrace no more! I recollected that this day was the anniversary of my marriage. I believed that I was going to die, with my consolation that we should dic together; husband and my daughter. It was some Review-Miss Williams on the French Persecution. and it seemed to me that this was the morent in which we were best prepared to appear in the presence of God-the victims of a religious duty; in the performance of which we had braved the fury of the wicked; we had flown with eager footsteps to our temple; we had clung to the altar of our God, without heeding that the assassin's dagger might cross our path and impede our purpose.' "It was at this moment that General La Garde, who had hastened to the post of danger, received from one of the assassins & ball, which entered near his heart. He covered the blood, gushing from his wound, with his manteau, and protected the retreat of the Protestants from the temple. He was then conveyed to his house, where the bullet was with difficulty extracted. The fury of the populace was not satiated. In the evening of this day the temples of the Protestants were broken open, and every thing contained in them-the registers, psalm-books, the gowns of the ministers, were torn into shreds and burnt." Pp. 45 -51. After this picture we have a pane gyrical account of the measures of the Duke of Angouleme, also, we suppose, philosophical and pious. Nothing but the remonstrances of the Protestants prevented, and these scarcely prevented, his ordering the Protestant churches to be re-opened! He and all the Court and all Catholics abhorred the outrages at Nismes; "the Buonapartists alone exulted," and according to the doctrine of the Bourbon satellites in England these Buonapart ists included all the Protestants ! Eager as it should seem to quit this ubject, Miss Williams turns to England, and dwells with enthusiasm upon the bold proceedings of the English on behalf of their persecuted Protestant brethren. But who are the English whom she thus extols? A part of the Protestant Dissenting Ministers of the Three Denominations, and their churches, who, forgetting all doctrinal differences, not lulled into slumber by the promises of Lord Liverpool, not deterred by the coarse calumnies of hireling prints, not kept back by the calculations or prognostics of some of their own body, not shaken by the cowardice and desertion of a sister society which had attempted to ontrun them and to get first to the sepulchre, have made all England and all Europe ring with execrations upon the bigotry and insidious policy of the French government and the cruel and criminal neglect of the Allies! 231 "The period was now arrived when, England fixed her steadfast eye on the Protestants of the South of France. The story of their persecution had reached her ear. The feeling of their wrongs had penetrated her heart. Indignation beat high in every British bosom. Public meetings were called together. The various associations, which watch with wakeful jealousy over the civil and religious rights of mankind, expressed in their addresses and declarations all the energy of virtuous resentment, impatient for redress. "Favoured and glorious England! How poor are the trophies of other nations compared with those which encircle her brows! She has ever the pre-eminence in all the counsels of philanthropy; the arbitress of moral action; the guardian of the wronged, whatever region they inhabit, with whatever colour they may be tinged. While England exists, justice will never want a sanctuary, nor the oppressed a refuge. "Her anuals proudly boast her long support of the Protestant cause. We see the court of Elizabeth receiving the apologizing in mourning. We find the sympathies of Ambassador of Charles IX. in silence, and the whole nation aroused by the moans of the Protestant vallies of Piedmont, when they "redoubled to the hills, and they to heaven." But Englishmen wait not the tardy spur of government to goad them into action when the tidings of religious persecution strike in their ear. They are at their post when danger menaces their brethren. They pause not to inquire against what form of worship, or mode of faith, religious persecution be directed; it is sufficient for them that this demon exercises its ravages. The followers of Calvin, and the professors of a less their common religious rights. England is difficult faith become the mutual guarantees of the natural guardian of Protestantism, and she will never betray her trust. Unwearied vigilance is the function of a tutelar divinity. England knows, that if the Vatican no longer speaks in thunder, the efforts of that power are not less persevering. In all its variations of shape, this Proteus, whether it be styled, as in the days of yore, the dissolute of heads and horns; or whether, as in latter Babylon, or the Hydra, with numerous times, it resemble the tortoise, retreating within its shell from the storm, sometimes stationary, but never receding--is still the same. What it appears to have forgotten it yet remembers; and when it seems torpid, it does not slumber. Wrapped up in its own infallibility, it sees ages pass away, with their manners and their innovations, like the waves rolling at the foot of a rock, while its own principles and maxims remain unchanged. * See Milton's 18th Sonnet, with Wharton's Notes |