fulfilled" (Matt. v. 17, 18); and the apostle Paul, speaking of the law, says, "I had not known sin, except the law had said, ' Thou shalt not covet'" (Rom. vii. 7); and again, "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid, yea, we establish the law" (Rom. iii. 31). Surely he recognized the command in the same code which says, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." The apostle James also says, "Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all" (Jas. ii. 10); and the beloved disciple, John, "He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the 'truth is not in him" (1 John ii. 4).

It is argued by some that the Decalogue was purely national, to be done away with at the coming of Christ, and a new covenant introduced; this is shewn to be a great mistake, in a few lines which I will quote from a very excellent tract.* “Admitting," says the author, "that it was delivered immediately to them [the Jewish nation] in the form of a national covenant, this does not in the least imply that it was not equally binding, as a rule of obedience, upon other portions of the human family. We might as well argue that the New Testament belonged merely to the primitive christians, because it was delivered directly to them, and constituted the rule of their conduct, and the basis of their hopes. Yea, we might as well suppose that no nation except the Jews, were bound not to have any other gods before the Lord, not to kill, not to commit adultery, not to steal, not to bear false witness, as to suppose that the Decalogue was purely of a national character, and binding merely on that people during their continuance as a national church; and as the Decalogue was not merely national as a whole, so there was nothing national in the fourth commandment."

Those who hold the perpetual obligation of the Decalogue, are driven to the expedient that, under christianity, the Sabbath has been changed from the seventh to the first day of the week: here, then, is their weak point. What law, what authority have they for their assertion? Shew us the command, and we will obey it; until another positive law in so many express terms is given to us, we must consider that the command of God standeth fast; no pre

tended example of the apostles, no traditions of the church, are of any authority: as Mr. Owen very properly observes, "I cannot see how those Protestants who hold the Sabbath to have been transferred by God from the seventh day to the first, can answer him [the Papist] who alone relies on the authority of his church, for the command to keep the first day of the week." Mr. Owen sees no command for it, neither do I; then upon what loose ground does he 'stand, when he rests upon "the examples of the apostles and the churches they planted, in conducting church affairs on this day (Acts xx. 7; 1 Cor. xvi. 1, 2), together with the resurrection of Christ, and his repeated visits to the disciples in their assembly on it, and especially in the second week, there being no recorded appearance of Christ to them, from the day he rose till that day week, and the giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost on that day." I will endeavour to shew as concisely as I can, the mistake into which Mr. Owen has fallen, in supposing that anything of a sacred character is imputed by the apostles to that day.

In the first place, "the examples of the apostles, and the churches they planted, in conducting church affairs on this day" (Acts xx. 7; 1 Cor. xvi. 1, 2). The first of these passages mentions a meeting of christians "to break bread" on the first day of the week; but if the reader will refer to the common translation, he will find that there is no authority for the word day; why, then, might it not be the first night of the week? which would, according to Scripture reckoning, be the evening after the Sabbath,— a continuation of their Sabbath meeting. Paul was ready to depart on the morrow (the first day), and the brethren were anxious to obtain as much of his counsel and comfort as they could; he, therefore, continued his speech until midnight, in order that he might continue his journey at the break of day, i. e., the first day of the week. But even if this is thought to be a strained explanation of the passage, his breaking bread amongst them carries no proof that they were sanctifying the day; for it is said in Acts ii. 46, that they did so daily, and what was done daily, could not be peculiar to the Sabbath.

The second passage that Mr. Owen quotes is, 1 Cor. xvi. 1, 2. Here, again,

there is no proof of the christians meeting together for any religious purpose; on the contrary, it was their temporal affairs that the apostle wished them to attend to; the common English reader does not perceive that the original much more distinctly expresses the private nature of the command; but it would be better translated thus,-"let each of you by himself," &c., i. e., at home, not in the treasury of the church, as is sometimes asserted. This proves that they were attending to their secular business on the first day, and, therefore, I shall dismiss this passage as containing no proof what

ever.

2. "The resurrection of Christ," on that day. Where does Mr. Owen find that our Saviour rose on the first day of the week? In Luke xxiv. 1, 2, we find, "Now, upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they [the women] came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared;" and in John xx. 1, "The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene, early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre;" and in Matt. xxviii. 1, the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn towards the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene." A very good translation of this latter passage, I quote from a review by the Rev. W. H. Black.

"In

"The

true rendering is," mentioning this verse, "at the end of the week, on the [night] which shone towards the first [day] of the week. The word sabbaton occurs alike in each place, and certainly in the plural form; without an article it means week, not Sabbath. Besides, the moon was at the full, and shone all night. These two facts appear to have been generally overlooked by translators and critics."* All these passages tend to prove that the Saviour had risen before the first day had begun, and at the end of the Sabbath; therefore they have no ground to stand upon who rely for the observation of the first day upon the supposition that the resurrection took place on that day.

3. "His repeated visits to the disciples in their assembly on it, and especially in the second week; there being no recorded appearance of Christ to them from the day he rose till that day week." The first appearance of the Saviour to his disciples I find to be to two of them, as they were going to 1 Emmaus the first day of the week. Surely

"they could not have attached any sanctity to the day, for they were going a distance of "threescore furlongs," which was more than a Sabbath day's journey; and no doubt our Lord would have upbraided them if they had thus broken the Sabbath. Mr. Owen says, "especially in the second week." I suppose he refers to where it is said our Lord appeared to them after eight days; what proof is there that that was the next following first day? Can eight days after the first day mean the first day itself? I take it to be the second, or third, or any day after.

4. "The giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost on that day." "It is far from being conclusively proved (says the author of the tract before alluded to) that this event occurred on the first day of the week. It is much more likely to have occurred either on the fifth or the seventh. Indeed it is quite manifest, from the best calculations that can be made, from the time of eating the passover supper, the first paschal Sabbath, the crucifixion, and the resurrection, that it occurred on one or the other of these days" (Page 21).

Thus, I hope, I have proved satisfactorily to the minds of some of your readers that the example of the apostles does not warrant the change of the day; and the perpetuity of the moral law has been fully proved by Mr. Young, in your number for October.

In conclusion, I cannot help referring to a passage by "A sincere Enquirer after 'Divine Truth," where he says, "If there was a permanent Sabbath law issued at the creation as commemorative of the resting of Jehovah from his works, it is time we went back to the old practice, for, according to our present custom, we do not obey it." I wish, indeed, the old practice were restored; and I hope the author, who is "a friend of truth," will soon see the untenableness of his views, and return to the good old way. One remark must be made on the assertion of Mr. Leigh in the December number: "He is a bold and dangerous innovator who would now tell us, after 1800 years, that the 'faithful in Christ Jesus' have, during that lengthened period, mistaken their Lord's will, with regard to such an important matter as the observance of the Sabbath." The argument, think, by a Pædobaptist, might be turned against him,

in his observance of believers' baptism (which, I suppose, most contributors to "The Church" practice), that he must be a bold and dangerous innovator, if he tells the "faithful in Christ Jesus," who think differently from him, that they have mistaken their Lord's will, in observing infant sprinkling instead of believers' baptism. I was glad to see your opinion expressed

against such illiberality as that shewn by Mr. Leigh, and that you are friends to "Liberty of Speech," and have "no confidence in suppression of opinion, but great reliance on the final results of really free discussion."

London.

I am, dear Sirs,

Yours very truly,

A SEVENTH Day Baptist.

No. I.

To the Editors of "The Church." In fulfilment of the promise made in a former paper to your readers, I proceed to furnish you with an analysis of the instances of baptizo and its cognate terms, which occur in the writings of Plutarch. A few particulars of the life of this celebrated writer, as well as of his moral and religious sentiments, may, perhaps, be acceptable as an introduction to such an article, not less than in the case of Josephus.

The town of Cheronea in Boeotia, chiefly famous in history for the disastrous triumph of the Macedonian Philip over the liberties of southern Greece, had the honour of giving birth to our author. Boeotia, on account of the thickness of its air, and, it must be added, the gluttony of its inhabitants, had long been notorious as a soil for dull and stunted intellects; before our author's time, the memory of the poets, Hesiod and Pindar, and of Epaminondas among statesmen, had helped only slightly to remove this reproach. The family of Plutarch would appear to have been settled at Cheronca for several generations. He himself traces back its location there as far as the time of the triumvir Antony, the very harsh exactions of whose soldiers on the inhabitants, just before the battle of Actium, used to be related by his great grandfather Nicarchus. Other anecdotes relative to an earlier part of the triumvir's career,―viz., to the season of his voluptuous indulgences at Alexandria,-used to be told by his grandfather, whose name was Lamprias.

The name of Plutarch's father no where

* Reip. Ger. Præc. § 20.

transpires; but from the part which he assigns him in various dialogues which remain, we are warranted in giving him credit for decidedly intellectual tastes and relishes, as well as for valuable social qualities. His character for prudence and amiable feeling comes out very pleasingly in a little circumstance which his son relates of him. Plutarch, while still comparatively young, had been deputed, with another, on some public business to the proconsul. Owing to some cause of detention which is not mentioned, his colleague had not been able to discharge this commission with him. Plutarch relates that when, on his return, he was about to state publicly how he had executed his trust, his father took him aside and advised him to speak throughout in the plural number.

"Do not say, 'I went,' 'I held this discourse,' but we went,' 'we held.' Thus, while you will ultimately lose little of the credit of the transaction, you will conciliate the good-will of your colleague, and perhaps escape a degree of odium." The parents of Plutarch had, at least, two sons besides himself, Timon and Lamprias, with both of whom he was on the most affectionate terms; to his brother Timon, in particular, he speaks of himself as under obligations of a nature which could not be exceeded. It throws some light on the easy temperament of this brother, that at an entertainment which he once gave a party of friends, he would have his guests choose their own places at the table, a circumstance which gave rise to one of the most lively discussions which we find in our author's writings. It is chiefly as an interlocutor in these discussions, in which

he is sometimes made to bear a principal part, that we meet with the name of his other brother Lamprias, who, to judge from these remains, was certainly no specimen of Boeotian obtuseness.

Without fear of any wide deviation from the mark, we may consider A.D. 49 or 50 to have been the year of our author's birth. At the time when Nero visited Greece, which is fixed to the twelfth year of that emperor's reign, or about 66 of our present era, he was of an age not only to enjoy, but to take part in, a philosophical disputation, in order to which he could scarcely have been less than sixteen or seventeen years old. This disputation was conducted chiefly by a philosopher named Ammonius, whom Plutarch mentions elsewhere as having been his tutor.* He gives an instance, in the same connection, of this philosopher's habit of dealing with his pupils, which, to our modes of thinking, would savour more of ingenuity than of a respect for juvenile rights. Observing, on one occasion, some of his higher pupils dining more luxuriously than was becoming, Ammonius ordered a servant who was standing by, to administer a few lashes to his own son, explaining, while the infliction was proceeding, that it was because the boy could not eat his meat without sauce. Plutarch cites this fact as a happy exemplification of an indirect way of reproving superiors. his more mature years, Plutarch became a tutor himself, though we attach no credence to the legend handed down by Suidas, that he superintended the education of the emperor Trajan. He pursued this avocation, and that of lecturing, chiefly at Rome, where we find him so engaged in the reign of the emperor Domitian. An anecdote which he mentions in the treatise he has left us "On Curiosity," is adapted to give us a high opinion of the respect he obtained as a literary professor. It seems that he was once lecturing at Rome in the days of Domitian, when a letter was brought from the emperor to Arulenus Rusticus, one of his auditors. Plutarch would have suspended the lecture till the messenger could have been dispatched with a reply, but Rusticus insisted on his proceeding, and would not even break the seal till the lecture was concluded. Neither lectures nor tuition engaged, however, at this time, our author's whole attention. He had a

De Ad. et. Am. Dis. 2 45.

In

variety of public commissions to execute, some of which appear to have taken him into the country parts of Italy. It is certain that he found opportunity, during his absence from Greece, to visit both Ravenna and Brixillum, in the former of which, he tells us, he saw a statue of Marius, in the latter, a monument of Otho. On quitting Rome and Italy, he appears to have extended his travels as far as Alexandria in Egypt, probably, also, into the interior of that country.

At what period of his life Plutarch entered the married state we have no means of saying; but in the formation of this important relationship he appears to have been singularly happy. This he had the more reason to be grateful for, as the marriage would seem to have taken place, in the first instance, without the full consent of the parents on both sides. We know little more of his wife's family than the name of her father, which was Alexion, and whom, from the single occasion on which Plutarch mentions him, we may, perhaps, rate as a man of average accomplishments and worth. But his daughter Timoxena (for such was the name of Plutarch's wife), was a woman superior to most of her sex: superior both in strength of mind and in domestic character. What we know of her we know chiefly from a bereavement which she sustained of an only daughter, a child in whom the fond parents had hoped to prolong her own name, but who was snatched from them at the early age of two years. Plutarch was from home when this afflictive event occurred, and in hopes of mitigating the shock which he knew it would occasion' the mother, he wrote her the brief, consolatory epistle which we still have in his remaining works. His tenderness, as a husband and a father, appears very conspicuously in this beautiful production; nor are the topics of consolation which he employs such as would misbecome the pen of a christian moralist. He reminds his mourning partner of the comfort they had already had in the child, especially on account of its unusually engaging manners, and that it would be ungrateful to forget the past in their sorrow with regard to the future. He conjures her to moderate and control her grief for his sake. He speaks, with a laudable pride, of her tempered and

decorous bearing on former occasions of a like kind, and of the salutary influence which she had then and thereby exerted on others. He strives to impress her with cheerful views of the child's present state and circumstancés, contrary to the gloomy dogma which would make life and existence terminate together. In this part of his argument he speaks of a belief in immortality, as if it had been an hereditary creed with them, a tradition handed down from parents to children.

It is a pleasing proof of the genuine patriotic feeling of Plutarch, that he should have voluntarily chosen for residence in his later life, so obscure a place as his native town. Cheronea was, he informs us, a small city, and his chief motive for settling down there was, that it might not become smaller. As to the year of his retirement into privacy thither, we can only approximate to the truth in fixing it at from A.D. 106 to 110, i. e., when he was from fifty-six to sixty years of age. He did not feel at liberty, in his retirement, to decline all public occupation. He was not ashamed, for instance, to accept a sort of œdileship in his native city, an office which required him, as he pleasantly intimates,* to see to the measurement of tiles, and the due forthcoming of bricks and mortar. His maxim in these matters was that of his countryman Epaminondas,-that it was for the man to confer dignity on the office, not the office on the man. A more important trust which he held, was the superintendence of the sacred edifices at the neighbouring oracle of Delphi, with which, as also with some sacerdotal functions at the same shrine, he appears to have been invested. This appointment he held for several years,-full twelve, on the lowest computation, and, in the discharge of it, would seem to have expended considerable time and labour, if not money. It was, doubtless, an employment congenial to his taste, and that not only because of his re

verence for the temple, but also because of the many poetical and mythological associations which it served to recal to his mind. But the most profitable use which he made of his leisure at this time, so far as posterity was concerned, was his composition of his "Parallel Lives." As he expressly. tells us, in the preface to the fifth of these,f that he was composing it at Cheronea, we' may safely date the authorship of the majority of them after his retirement to this place. The composition of other treatises, -of one half, perhaps, of his extant moral works, was probably intermingled with them. We gather from his Symposiacs, a species of dialogues which we should now denominate "Table Talk," and which were certainly written at this period, that he found the necessary relaxation from his employments, of whatever kind, in the society of friends, of whom few men have had a larger or a more attached circle.. The nature of Plutarch was eminently formed for friendship, and for the enjoyment of social life. Affectionate in his disposition, without censoriousness in his judgments, vivacious and instructive in conversation, accustomed equally to active and contemplative life, able to combine due freedom of intercourse with due reserve, he was a welcome guest at most tables, and in most houses. We reckon up, without difficulty, the names of a hundred persons with whom he was on terms of familiar friendship, not including the members. of his own family, and comprising in the number persons of the most dissimilar professions and pursuits. In the company of Plutarch the gaiety of youth does not seem to have feared repression, nor the gravity of age to have feared outrage. Although the gentler sex were excluded by custom from meetings of the kind, they were glad of his correspondence, and to one among them he has dedicated the most erudite of his speculations. Stepney College.