Transcribed from the 1852 John Murray edition by DavidPrice
BY
CHARLES JOHN VAUGHAN, D.D.
HEAD MASTEROF HARROW SCHOOL.
LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET;
CROSSLEY AND CLARKE, LEICESTER ANDHARROW:
MACMILLAN AND CO., CAMBRIDGE.
MDCCCLII.
p. 2PRINTED BY W.NICOL, 60, PALL MALL.
No Clergyman who values his own ease will write on either sideof a question connected however remotely with that of Sundayobservance. If he takes the one side, the world accuses himof bigotry: if the other, his brethren stigmatize him as aLatitudinarian. What is worse, he runs the risk of eitherfurnishing a handle to the irreligious, or perplexing anddepressing the thoughtful and serious.
Nor is the danger removed by his occupying a position of theutmost possible moderation, acknowledging the strength of bothsides, and endeavouring to adjust with p. 4all evenness their conflictingclaims. The only result is, that he becomes the prey ofboth parties: each holds on its way, and the voice of candour issilenced by the uproar.
Yet the truth must be spoken. No personal considerationsought to suppress it. No anxiety for the cause of good canjustify a timid compromise with error.
It is impossible to reflect without a sense of deep disquietupon the present position of the Sunday question inEngland. It is a point on which men’s professions areat war with their conduct. It is a point on whichtraditional ideas are held in forced conjunction with alteredpractices. It is a point on which Christian teachers willnot speak out. It is a point on which popularprepossessions are accepted as a convenient fact, even where theyare felt to rest on insufficient grounds, and to lead to a mostinadequate result.
And what is the consequence? Men’s consciences areperplexed. They ask—and there is no audibleanswer—Why do I observe the Sunday? Is it on theground p. 5ofthe Mosaic commandment? If so, who has relaxed thestrictness of its terms? Where is the permission to do,what we all do, but what Israel did not, on the Sabbathday? Who taught us that in this one instance the Christianrule of keeping the spirit of God’s commandments impliesthe licence to break the letter?
Questions such as these are left to answer themselves as theycan. There remains a large amount of Sabbatical observance:but it is associated with no little bondage of spirit in what isdone, and with no little embarrassment of conscience in what isleft undone.
And where, meanwhile, is the Christian teacher, wise enoughand bold enough to proclaim from his pastoral watch-tower theyoke with which Christ has bound us, the liberty wherewith He hasmade us free?
Where is he who can encounter, even as St. Paul encounteredit, the obloquy which assails in every age the exaltation of theeverlasting Gospel, as, not the summary merely, not the expansionmerely, not the interpretation merely, but the END—in ...