LETTER VIII.

Some popular Pleas for Sacramental Fasts and Thanksgivings, briefly considered.

CHRISTIAN BRETHREN,

AFTER all that has been said, will

any still advocate our sacramental fasts and thanksgivings, by pleading that "they are of long standing in the church—are a laudable custom-are well meant-have been practised by great and good men-are helpful to devotion—are either sin or duty; and if not the former, then certainly the latter!"

A word or two to each of these pretences. As to their antiquity, I remark,

1. It is not true: we have already proved them to be quite modern; an innovation of yesterday.

2. Antiquity is a wretched standard of truth: the abominations of popery are more ancient than they by several centuries.

That they are a laudable custom, is begging the question, for it is the very thing in dispute. Beside, custom is not to be the rule of worship. Many bad customs have crept into the church of God: and if their being once customs, is a reason for their being always customs, the reformers acted very foolishly, in throwing so

many of them away. If it be not a scriptural custom, the longer it has stood the worse; the more mishief it has done; and the greater need for its immediate abolition. The injury done by custom to purity, is the subject of old and heavy complaint. "Our Lord Christ called himself truth, not custom," saith Tertullian*.

Their being well-meant, is no better apology than the former. Good intentions do not sanctify a fault. The worst of things have sometimes been done with the best design. Zeal for God, not according to knowledge, has been a greater pest to his church, than all the openly wicked schemes of Satan and his agents.

But great and good men have practised them -And the argument will be conclusive, whenever it is proved that great and good men never do wrong. Till then, we must look more at God's word, than at their example. Great and good men have observed "days, and months, and times, and years;" and have used rites and ceremonies, the very mention of which, as parts or appendages of worship, would excite among us just and universal indignation. Their errors were not so much their own, as the errors of their day and place.

* Dominus noster Christus veritatem se, non consuetudinem cognominavit. De virginibus velandis. Opp. p. 172. ed. Rigaltii. The whole passage is highly worth attention. S also CYPRIAN, ep. 73. p. 203, ep. 74. p. 215. ed. Feli

They followed the fashion, because it was the fashion, without serious examination, or perhaps any examination at all. This is undoubtedly the fact with respect to our sacramental fasts and thanksgivings; not one in a hundred of those who keep them, having ever inquired into their reason and obligation. And this is the best apology for those worthies whose conduct is now held up as a model for ours.

But the principle of this argument is utterly intolerable. It puts an everlasting stop to reformation. Had our ancestors acted upon it we would have been still within the precincts of that synagogue of Satan, the church of Rome. They were more enlightened. Could they hear us allege their example in vindication of an unscriptural usage, they would be the first to resent the impiety. Not wishing us to be followers of them, farther than they were of Christ, they would disown us as a spurious brood, and not the genuine sons of the Reformation. We have made miserable proficiency, if we have not yet learned that maxim of Christian independence, not to call any man our master upon earth.

Will it be pretended that the days in question are helpful to devotion? This very pretext is urged in behalf of Christmas, and Good Friday, and Whitsunday, and Lent. This very pretext has been an inlet to a multitude

of those abuses, which, in the most profligate times, inundated the church of God. Nothing so ridiculous, so monstrous, so profane, as to be denied its sanction. Pictures, pennances, saint-worship, crofses, images, and all the rest of the ungodly trumpery, find a sanctuary here. Devotion, forsooth, cannot be maintained by means which the Lord hath appointed; but when to these, men have added a host of their own inventions, they become wonderfully devout! What rashnefs! what presumption! As if the great God were lefs concerned about his own worship than we! As if he did not thoroughly know our frame, and what is necefsary to cherish devout affection! As if he had left his institutions imperfect, and we must mend them!

But, says an objector, the observance of these days is either sin or duty; and if not the former, then certainly the latter.

As this argument appears to be a favourite with some; and one which, by involving their opponent in a perplexing dilemma, issues, they imagine, in their own certain and decisive triumph; it demands a more particular animadversion.

1. then, The proposition, that an act must be either sin or duty, is false and absurd. It is no doubt, sinful to omit what is our duty to do;

and duty to omit, what is sinful to do. This, however, is nothing to the purpose; for it is only saying that duty is duty, and sin is sin. But it is not true what the proposition asserts, that if a thing be not sin it is necessarily duty. By this mode of arguing, you must own every thing to be duty which you cannot prove to be sin. For example; you will not maintain, that it would have been sin in the apostle Paul, to have taken wages from the church of Corinth; for he peremptorily affirms his right to it from the ordinance of God*. Then it must have been his duty and in declining pecuniary support, he was chargeable with a breach of duty.

This same mode of arguing will convict, not only the apostle of sin, but the Bible of error. Let us instance, in the vows spoken of, Deut. xxiii. 21, 23. These vows, saith the argument, were either sin or duty; not sin, most afsuredly; therefore duty: and not to vow would have been sinful, because an omifsion of duty. But saith the Lord, "if thou forbear to vow, it shall be no sin in thee." On the other hand, we might equally argue, Not to vow was either sin or duty. Sin it could not be, for God said so; therefore duty; so that vowing, being the opposite of duty, would have been sinful; whereas the Lord

* 1 Cor. ix, 14.