sary after the revelation of the Gospel. And yet," he adds, "because it was requisite to appoint a certain day that the people might know when to assemble together, it appeared that the Church appointed for this purpose the Lord's day." I am glad to find my grand old namesake on the side of freedom in this matter. "As for the Sabbath," says the martyr Tyndale, "we are lords over it, and may yet change it into Monday, or into any other day, as we see need; or may make every tenth day holy day, only if we see cause why. Neither need we any holy day at all if the people might be taught without it." Calvin repudiated "the frivolities of false prophets who, in later times, have instilled Jewish ideas into the people. Those," he continues, "who thus adhere to the Jewish institution go thrice as far as the Jews themselves in the gross and carnal superstition of Sabbatism." Even John Knox, who has had so much Puritan strictness unjustly laid to his charge, knew how to fulfill on the Lord's day the duties of a generous, hospitable host. His Master feasted on the Sabbath-day, and he did not fear to do the same on Sunday.
Toward the end of the sixteenth century, demands for a stricter observance of the Sabbath began to be made—probably in the first instance with some reason, and certainly with good intent. The manners of the time were coarse, and Sunday was often chosen for their offensive exhibition. But, if there was coarseness on the one side, there was ignorance both of nature and human nature on the other. Contemporaneously with the demands for stricter Sabbath rules, God's judgments on Sabbath-breakers began to be pointed out. Then and afterward "God's judgments" were much in vogue, and man, their interpreter, frequently behaved as a fiend in the supposed execution of them. But of this subsequently. A Suffolk clergyman named Bownd, who, according to Cox, was the first to set forth at large the views afterward embodied in the Westminster (Confession, adduces many such judgments. One was the case of a nobleman "who for hunting on the holy day was punished by having a child with a head like a dog's." Though he cites this instance, Bownd, in the matter of Sabbath observance, was very lenient toward noblemen. With courtier-like pliancy, which is not without its counterpart at the present time, he makes an exception in their favor: "Concerning the feasts of noblemen and great personages or their ordinary diet upon this day, because they represent in some measure the majesty of God on the earth, in carrying the image, as it were, of the magnificence and puissance of the Lord, much is to be granted to them."
Imagination once started in this direction was sure to be prolific. Instances accordingly grew apace in number and magnitude. Memorable examples of God's judgments upon Sabbath-breakers, and other like libertines, in their unlawful sports happening within this realm of England, were collected. Innumerable cases of drowning while bathing on Sunday were adduced, without the slightest attention to the
