formance belonged, had laid their hands on the head of the candidate, a symbolic action borrowed from the Jewish

-they besought the Lord that he would grant, what this symbol denoted, the impartation of the gifts of his Spirit for carrying on the office thus undertaken in his name. If, as was presumed, the whole ceremony corresponded to its intent, and the requisite disposition existed in those for whom it was performed, there was reason for considering the communication of the spiritual gifts necessary for the office, as connected with this consecration performed in the name of Christ. And since Paul from this point of view designated the whole of the solemn proceeding, (without separating it into its various elements,) by that which was its external symbol (as in scriptural phraseology, a single act of a transaction, consisting of several parts, and sometimes that which was most striking to the senses, is often mentioned for the whole); he required of Timothy that he should seek to revive afresh the spiritual gifts that he had received by the laying on of hands.

Respecting the election to offices in the church, it is evident that the first deacons, and the delegates who were authorized by the church to accompany the apostles, were chosen from the general body; 2 Cor. viii. 19. From these examples, we may conclude that a similar mode of proceeding was adopted at the appointment of presbyters. But from the fact that Paul committed to his disciples Timothy and Titus (to whom he assigned the organization of new churches, or of such as had been injured by many corruptions), the appointment likewise of presbyters and deacons, and called their attention to the qualifications for such offices, we are by no means justified in concluding that they performed all this alone without the cooperation of the churches. The manner in which Paul was wont to address himself to the whole church, and to take into account the cooperation of the whole community, which must be apparent to every one in reading his Epistles,-leads us to expect, that where a church was already established, he would admit it as a party in their common concerns. It is possible, that the apostle himself in many cases, as on the founding of a new church, might think it advisable to nominate the persons best fitted for such offices, and a proposal from such a quarter would naturally carry the

greatest weight with it. In the example of the family of Stephanas at Corinth, we see that those who first undertook office in the church, were members of the family first converted in that city.

It was also among the churches of the Gentile Christians that the peculiar nature of the Christian worship was fully expressed in the character of their cultus. For among the Jewish Christians the ancient forms of the Jewish cultus were still retained, though persons of this class who were deeply imbued with the spirit of the gospel, and hence had acquired the essence of inward spiritual worship, which is limited to no place or time,-were made free as it regarded their inward life from the thraldom of these forms, and had learned to refine these forms by viewing them in the light of the gospel. Such persons thought that the powers of the future world which they were conscious of having received, would still continue to operate in these forms belonging to the ancient economy, until that future world and the whole of its new heavenly economy would arrive, by means of the return of Christ to complete his kingdom,—a decisive era which appeared to them not far distant. On the contrary, among the Gentiles the free spiritual worship of God developed itself in direct opposition to Judaism and the attempts to mingle Judaism and Christianity. According to the doctrine of the apostle Paul, the Mosaic law in its whole extent had lost its value as such to Christians; nothing could be a rule binding on Christians on account of its being contained in the Mosaic law; but, whatever was binding as a law for the Christian life, must as such derive its authority from another quarter. Hence a transference of the Old Testament command of the sanctity of the Sabbath to the New Testament standing-point was not admissible. Whoever considered himself subject to one such command, in Paul's judgment again placed himself under the yoke of the whole law; his inward life was thereby brought into servitude to outward earthly things, and sinking into Jewish nationalism, denied the universalism of the gospel; for on the standingpoint of the gospel, the whole life became in an equal manner related to God, and served to glorify him, and thenceforth no opposition existed between what belonged to the world and what belonged to God. Thus all the days of the Christian

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life must be equally holy to the Lord; hence Paul says to the Galatian Christians, who had allowed themselves to be so far led astray as to acknowledge the Mosaic law as binding, and to observe the Jewish feasts, "After that ye have known God, or rather (by his pitying love), have been led to the knowledge of God, how turn ye again' to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?" Gal. iv. 9. He fears that his labours among them to make them Christians had been in vain, and for this very reason, because they reckoned the observance of certain days as holy to be an essential part of religion. The apostle does not here oppose the Christian feasts to the Jewish, but he considers the whole reference of religion to certain days as something foreign to the exalted standing-point of Christian freedom, and belonging to that of Judaism and Heathenism. With a similar polemical view (in Coloss. ii. 16) he declares his opposition to those who considered the observation of certain days as essential to religion, and condemned those who did not observe them. Although, in the Epistle to the Romans, xiv. 1-6, he enjoins forbearance towards such in whom the Christian spirit was not yet developed with true

1 Thus he spoke to those who had formerly been heathens; for although in other points Judaism might be considered as opposed to heathenism, yet he viewed as an element common to both, the cleaving to outward forms.

2 I have translated this passage according to the sense; more literally it would be," or rather are known by God."-Living in estrangement from him, they lived in spiritual darkness, in ignorance of God and of divine things; but now by the mercy of God revealing itself t them, they obtained living communion with him, and the true knowledge of him. After Paul had contrasted their present standing-point of divine knowledge with that of their former ignorance, he corrects himself, in order not to let it be imagined that they were indebted simply to the exercise of their own reason for this knowledge of God, and represents in strong terms, that they were indebted for every thing to divine grace, the grace of redemption. Therefore, they were guilty of ingratitude, in not making use of the knowledge vouchsafed to them by the grace of God. Had it been possible for Paul, according to the idiom of the Greek, to mark by a passive form of the same word Yidokew, the contrast between a received knowledge imparted by God, and a knowledge gained by the exercise of the mental powers alone, he would for that purpose have used the passive form. This, indeed, the laws of the Greek language did not permit; but yet the passive form, according to his customary Hellenistic idiom, gave him an opportunity to mark the contrast which he had in his mind still more strongly

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freedom, yet he certainly considers it as the most genuine Christianity, to think every day alike, to hold none peculiarly sacred to the Lord ; the κρίνειν πᾶσαν ἡμέραν—μὴ φρονεῖν κυρίῳ τὴν ἡμέραν.

It is worthy of notice, that Paul in such passages entirely rejects even festive observances, as they were considered among Gentiles and Jews as something absolutely essential to religion, and does not even mention any days which might be expressly sacred in a freer method, and suited to Chris. tianity, Christian feasts properly so called. So far was he from thinking that on the Christian standing-point there could be days which could in any manner bear a resemblance to what in the Jewish sense was a feast, or that it was necessary to set apart any day whatever as specially to be observed by the church! From such passages we may conclude, that, in the Gentile churches, all days of the week were considered alike suitable for the service of the church; and that all preference of one day to another was regarded as quite foreign to the genius of the gospel.

A perfectly unquestionable and decided mention of the ecclesiastical observance of Sunday among the Gentile Christians, we cannot find in the times of the Apostle Paul, but there are two passages which make its existence probable. If what Paul says, 1 Cor. xii. 2, relates to collections which were made at the meetings of the church, it would be evident from this passage that at that time the Sunday was specially devoted to such meetings. But Paul, if we examine his language closely, says no more than this: that every one should lay by in his own house on the first day of the week, whatever he was able to save. This certainly might mean, that every one should bring with him the sum he had saved to the meeting of the church, that thus the individual contributions might be collected together, and be ready for Paul as soon as he came. But this would be making a gratuitous supposition, not at all required by the connexion of the passage.1 We may fairly understand the whole passage to mean, that every one on the first day of the week should lay aside what he could spare, so that when Paul came, every one might be prepared with the total of the sum thus laid

1 The word @noavpičwv, 1 Cor. xvi. 2, applied to setting aside the small sums weekly, is against the notion of a public collection.

by, and then, by putting the sums together, the collection of the whole church would be at once made. If we adopt this interpretation, we could not infer that special meetings of the church were held and collections made on Sundays. And if we assume that, independently of the influence of Christianity, the Jewish reckoning by weeks had been adopted among the heathen in the Roman Empire; still in this passage we can find no evidence for the existence of a religious distinction of Sunday. But since we are not authorized to make this assumption unless a church consisted for the most part of those who had been Jewish Proselytes,' we shall be led to infer that the religious observances of Sunday occasioned its being considered the first day of the week. It is also mentioned in Acts xx. 7, that the church at Troas assembled on a Sunday and celebrated the Lord's Supper. Here the question arises, whether Paul put off his departure from Troas to the next day, because he wished to celebrate the Sunday with this church-or whether the church met on the Sunday (though they might have met on any other day), because Paul had fixed to leave Troas on the following day.

At all events, we must deduce the origin of the religious observance of Sunday, not from the Jewish-Christian churches, but from the peculiar circumstances of the Gentile Christians, and may account for the practice in the following manner. Where the circumstances of the churches did not allow of daily meetings for devotion and agape-although in the nature of Christianity no necessity could exist for such a distinction-although on the Christian standing-point all days were to be considered as equally holy, in an equal manner devoted to the Lord-yet on account of peculiar outward relations, such a distinction of a particular day was adopted for religious communion. They did not choose the Sabbath which the Jewish Christians celebrated, in order to avoid the risk of mingling Judaism and Christianity, and because another event was more closely associated with Christian sentiments. The sufferings and resurrection of Christ appeared as the central point of Christian knowledge and practice; since his resurrection was viewed as the foundation of all Christian joy and hope, it was natural that the day which 1 See Ideler's Chronologie, i. 180.