While researching I was delighted to find some of Fr Archer's sermons extant in their original handwritten form, the above is the first page,as given below, dated 1788, sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost.The subject is Keeping Holy the Sabbath. Copyright Pitts Theology Library, Atlanta GA.
… And Jesus answering spoke to the lawyers and the Pharisees saying is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day…
There is no commandment in the law expressed in stronger terms than this. When God orders his people to sanctify the Sabbath day he seems to mistrust their fidelity in this point more than any other. Remember saith He thou keep holy the Sabbath day. He commanded Moses to tell the Israelites that if they profaned this day they should be put to death. He used a very powerful motive to excite them to the observance of so just a duty, in laying before their eyes their deliverance from the Egyptian captivity and omits nothing whereby to avert them from the profanation of these holy days. The Church follows the footsteps of her divine Spouse and Master hath fulminated anathemas and excommunications against the profanation of Sundays and Holydays, and nevertheless the most dreadful threats and rigorous punishments do not suffice to stay the licentiousness of many, and nothing is more common than the profanation of these holy days. And may it not be said that there is no time…
To be continued
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