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SIX 
 
 PLAIN SERMONS 
 
 ON THE 
 
 SABBATH. 
 
 REV. JOSEPH B. OWEN, B. A. 
 
 op ST. JOHN'S cor.i,KGi;, c.vjibridgf., 
 
 AND Ml\-ISTEn OP W V 1. S A 1. 1. WOOn, STAFFORD. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 rREDETlICK "WESTLEY & A. H. DAVIS, 
 
, miNTEE, i:nr,An-STREF,T-uii.i-. 
 
THE VERY REV. GEORGE DAVYS, D.D. 
 
 DEAN OF CHESTER, 
 
 Sermons 
 
 ARE, 
 
 WITH PERMISSION, INSCRIBED, 
 AS AN HUMBLE EXPRESSION OF PUBLIC RESPECT 
 AND OF PRIVATE GRATITUDE, 
 BY 
 
 HIS OBLIGED AND 
 
 FAITHFUL SERVANT, 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Arclnive 
 in 2015 
 
 littps://arcliive.org/details/sixplainsermonsoOOowen 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 TO THE PARISHIONERS OF WALSALL. 
 
 My dear Friends, 
 
 Many of you are aware that these Sermons 
 were not prepared for any further pubHcity, 
 than that which they met with from the con- 
 gregation assembhng in St. Paul's Chapel, Wal- 
 sall. At the general request of those who heard 
 them from the pulpit, 1 have been induced to 
 offer them to you again from the press, ear- 
 nestly beseeching the same Divine blessing to 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 rest upon their print, which, I humbly trust, 
 attended their dehvery. " Parvis coraponere 
 magna," I may be allowed to adopt the senti- 
 ment of an English Father on a similar occa- 
 sion : — " This publication," said he, " may be 
 esteemed but like preaching to a more numerous 
 auditory; which if I had done, it would have 
 been called either duty or charity ; and, thei'efore, 
 will not now so readily be censured for vanity, 
 if I make use of all the ways I can to minis- 
 ter to the good of souls." And again: " Un- 
 less I deceive myself, I intend the glory of 
 God sincerely, and the service of Jesus in this 
 publication ; and therefore, being I do not 
 seek myself or my own reputation, I shall not 
 be troubled if they be lost in the voices of busy 
 people, so that I be accepted of God, and 
 found of him in the day of the Lord's visita- 
 tion." If but one sabbath-breaker be induced, 
 
PREFACE. VU 
 
 by the grace of God, on the perusal of this 
 little volume, to "consider his ways and be 
 wise," an ample remuneration, and sufficient 
 ground of thankfulness to God, will be afforded 
 to the labour and anxiety of, 
 
 Your humble friend and servant, 
 
 In the common faith, 
 
 J. B. O. 
 
 JVakall Wood, Feb. mh, 1835. 
 
SERMON 
 
 THE DIVINE APPOINTMENT AND UNIVERSAL 
 OBLIGATION OF THE SABBATH. 
 
 " And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it : 
 because that in it he had rested from all his work, which 
 God created and made." 
 
 You are aware, my brethren, that, according 
 to the opinion of some eminent divines, the 
 Sabbath is a mere ecclesiastical, and not a 
 divine, institution. Though these writers may 
 not have wished hereby to derogate from its 
 authority, and necessary observance, yet, as it 
 is natural to the deceitful heart of man to 
 welcome any excuse for his neglect of religious 
 ordinances, perhaps it is more important than 
 the Anti-sabbatarians seem to have supposed, 
 that the rule of sabbath observance should be 
 withdrawn from the controvertible appointment 
 
 Gen. II. 3. 
 
2 
 
 of the Church, and referred to the more im- 
 mediate and unquestionable sanction of her 
 God. Let us, then, take the Word of God for 
 our only text book, and, humbly trusting to the 
 gracious influences of that Holy Spirit promised 
 " to guide us into all truth," seek it, with the 
 faithful hope of finding it. 
 
 We shall endeavour to prove the originality 
 of the sabbath, with a view to the establish- 
 ment of its universal obligation, as opposed to 
 its restriction to a purely Jewish origin and 
 obligation ; and, in a subsequent discourse, 
 adopt this feature of universality as the ground 
 of our inquiries into the substitution of the 
 Christian Sabbath. 
 
 What then do we mean by an original sab- 
 bath ? We intend that sabbath, or seventh day, 
 blessed and sanctified in the text (as we 
 shall endeavour to prove from the passage), at 
 the end of the first week of time, when, by 
 his own rest from material labour, God was 
 pleased to consecrate a day sacred to the 
 memory of a finished creation. We presume 
 that they who afiirm that the sabbath commenced 
 in Moses are not prepared virtually to deny 
 the inspiration of the Pentateuch, by sus- 
 
3 
 
 peering its illustrious author of interpolating 
 falsehood in its sacred rolls. Yet this must 
 they do, or deny the genuineness of our text ; 
 for Moses wrote the words, and Moses quoted 
 them as God's words, in republishing them in 
 the decalogue ; there referring the sanctification 
 of the sabbath to the finish of creation ; and the 
 six days' labour, to the amount of time God was 
 pleased to occupy in the work. 
 
 The words of the text are further canonized 
 in their reference to an original sabbath, by St. 
 Paul's citation and use of them in Heb. iv. 4. 
 The whole of the apostle's reasoning upon the 
 passage is built upon the supposition of such a 
 sabbath. Then what are we to understand by 
 God's blessing and sanctifying the first seventh 
 day? Did Moses merely insert it with a view 
 to the Jewish sabbath which he was about to 
 institute, that he might forge an authority and 
 antiquity to appeal to ? Is there an instance of 
 such fraud paralleled among any other of the 
 inspired writers ? Or will it be granted that 
 God himself sanctified a sabbath then, but with 
 a view to his future chosen people ? Was God's 
 example in the sanctification of a particular day, 
 a day commemorating an event equally interesting 
 B 2 
 
4 
 
 to all men, to be only followed by a particular 
 people, who formed scarce a ten-thousandth part 
 of mankind, and that 2500 years afterwards? — 
 Or was the day sanctified, that is, made holy, 
 set apart, and separated from the other six, to 
 make a sabbath for the angels, or for Deity him* 
 self? No. " The sabbath was made for man," 
 says our Lord, " and not man," or any par- 
 ticular race of men, " for the sabbath." If this 
 sabbath then were thus early instituted for man, 
 the first man would have been of course informed 
 of it: Adam was the representative of his race; 
 his race, as the case of the fall proved, were 
 implicated in his obligations ; that institution, 
 therefore, whose observance was imperative upon 
 Adam, was, and is, imperative upon all his race. 
 But there is no single allusion to a sabbath, say 
 they, from Adam to Moses. True, my brethren. 
 But the Book of Genesis and part of Exodus, 
 contain all the history of the whole world, till 
 near a thousand years after the flood. Is it a 
 wonder, then, that in annals so brief and cursory 
 there should be no allusion to either the ob- 
 servance or neglect of sabbaths ? There is not 
 a word about sabbaths during the whole of the 
 Babylonish captivity. Yet will it thence be 
 
5 
 
 argued, that during that period the Jews observed 
 no sabbath ? Nor is there any notice of the Is- 
 raelites' neglect of sabbath till the time of Isaiah, 
 731 years after the events recorded in Exodus; 
 yet will any one acquainted with their history 
 contend, that there had been no neglect till 
 then? As well might our opponents contend 
 there never was a prayer upon the earth till the 
 time of Abraham, because prayer is never men- 
 tioned till we hear God directing Abraham to 
 pray. 
 
 But further, though the sabbath is not by 
 name alluded to, perhaps it can be shewn that 
 there are accounts in the patriarchal times, from 
 which its observance may be almost necessarily 
 inferred ; — we shall notice these in their order of 
 history. 
 
 Cain and Abel are said to bring their offerings 
 " in process of time," or as the margin reads it, 
 *' at the end of the days." Now no other division 
 of time is recorded, except that division involved 
 in the idea of a seventh day; most probably, then, 
 the "end of the days" would mean, the end of 
 the week, i. e. the sabbath. Again ; there is 
 nothing natural in the idea of sacrifices. This 
 ordinance must have been revealed ; from the 
 
6 
 
 same source would they be admonished of the 
 proper day to offer them. Not, perhaps, that the 
 patriarchs, like too many professing Christians 
 in our day, offered worship only on the sabbath ; 
 but if there were any worship at all, the inference 
 is in favour of the chief worship on the day of 
 God's appointment. 
 
 It appears that, notwithstanding the early 
 outrage and sacrilege of Abel's murder (a mur- 
 der at the altar of sacrifice, and therefore most 
 probably committed on the sabbath), religion 
 began soon to be cultivated ; as even at the birth 
 of Enos, grandson of Adam, it is said, (Gen. iv. 
 26,) " Then began men to call upon the name of 
 the Lord." From this period scripture contains 
 a succession of worshippers of God (though the 
 most eminent are named at long intervals), up 
 to the time of Moses, from the accounts of some 
 of whom much valuable inference may be drawn. 
 We need not dwell upon the memoirs of Enoch, 
 Noah, or Abraham ; but upon the character of 
 Melchisedec a few remarks may be offered. 
 
 He is said to be a Priest of the Most High 
 God ; — the first mention of a priest in the history 
 of man. In ancient days, the father or patriarch 
 of a family was the domestic chaplain or priest. 
 
7 
 
 (Oh that there were more fathers hke Job, 
 offering sacrifices for his children !) This Mel- 
 chisedec was also King of Salem, patriarch of a 
 community ; doubtless, therefore, a public priest, 
 exercising his functions in the little state over 
 which he presided. 
 
 Now a public priest involves the idea of public 
 worship ; public worship could only take place 
 on days stated, and publicly known ; a priest of 
 the Most High God would not be likely to choose 
 any other day than that of his God's appointment ; 
 Melchisedec therefore was most probably a priest 
 of the sabbath. Whoever Melchisedec was, 
 these inferences from his office can in no case be 
 impugned. Some suppose he was our blessed 
 Lord himself; but the apostle quotes Melchi- 
 sedec as a type of Christ, and a type is not the 
 antitype, nor a shadow the substance. He is 
 confessedly a mysterious person. 
 
 Passing on from Abraham and Isaac, to Jacob, 
 we find Laban directing Jacob, on his marriage 
 with Leah, saying, " Fulfil her week ; " and whe- 
 ther this referred to a week of days, or the week 
 of seven years, which the patriarch served for both 
 Leah and Rachel, in either case the term week 
 proves their knowledge of that singular division of 
 
8 
 
 time. Upon which fact, more anon. Proceeding 
 through the patriarch's descendants, settled for 
 400 years in Egypt, we admit that during that 
 period not a name eminent for hohness is re- 
 corded ; nor is that to be wondered at, consider- 
 ing the hard slavery and oppression which they 
 endured, and that slavery is the natural and 
 historical cause of a demoralized and degraded 
 people. The iron, that galls the limb, " enters into 
 the soul" of the captive, and debases his life. It 
 was so with the tribes of Jacob till the advent of 
 Moses. But previous to his delivery of the law, 
 we find him asking permission for his people to 
 go out into the desert to sacrifice. He propose 
 it to the elders in language that presumes the' 
 previous acquaintance with the ordinance of sr- 
 crifice ; upon which facts the probable observance 
 of the sabbath may be inferred, as before, though 
 by reason of their bondage it might be very rare 
 and occasional. 
 
 Again. Perhaps the strongest argument for 
 the sabbath being known before its enforcement 
 in the decalogue, may be drawn from the word- 
 ing of the law itself. Neither in the words 
 themselves, nor in any previous or subsequent 
 reference or commentary upon them, do we find 
 
0 
 
 either of the accompaniments universally ex- 
 pected in the appointment of a new institution ; 
 viz. the reason of the observance, and the 
 manner in which it is to be observed. Now at 
 the institution of the rite of circumcision, and of 
 the ordinance of the passover, God had already 
 vouchsafed both reasons and directions ; but in 
 the sabbath neither are given, doubtless because 
 the people's knowledge of both is presumed in 
 their previous possession of a sabbath. Further 
 confirmed is this inference, in the wording of the 
 commandment, — "Remember the sabbath day, 
 to keep it holy." It is not " Remember the 
 seventh day, which God now appoints for your 
 sabbath," but " Remember the sabbath." What 
 sabbath could they be told to remember, if they 
 never heard of it before ? But we may be an- 
 swered : " They are informed, a few words 
 further, that the seventh day is the sabbath." 
 How did they know then which was the seventh 
 day? — the identical seventh day which com- 
 memorated the creation, to which the law referred 
 for its sanction ? If they knew it by the regular 
 succession of a sabbath, or seventh holyday, by 
 which, from Adam to Moses, the days and weeks 
 of time had been computed and dated, the point 
 B 3 
 
10 
 
 is clear, and establishes our position ; but other- 
 wise, the language of the law is unintelligible. 
 If we compute the respective ages of Methuselah, 
 Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, and Amram, the 
 father of Moses, we find that six persons only 
 could have passed the tradition from Adam to 
 the Hebrews. Furthermore, in the repetition of 
 the law in Deut. v. 15, another reason is given 
 for hallowing the sabbath, peculiar and interest- 
 ing to the Jews, which was, their deliverance 
 from Egypt on that day. But how could they 
 ascertain the coincidence in the day of the 
 finish of creation, with their deliverance from 
 Egypt, unless the original sabbath had been by 
 some means handed down the tide of tradition, 
 till it reached their cognizance ? We are not to 
 be answered, that Egypt, famous for her astro- 
 nomers, possessed every means of dividing and 
 computing time into its various particles, from a 
 year to a day, and that theHebrews resident among 
 them borrowed their calculations. Without some 
 specific successional mark of acknowledgment, all 
 " the learning of the Egyptians " could not have 
 dived into the by-gone days of centuries, and 
 brought up the pearl of the original, identical 
 sabbath, to which Moses referred, even if they 
 
11 
 
 possessed the inclination to attempt the task. 
 Yet these Egyptians, and the Syrians, and most 
 oriental nations, appear to have used weeks ; and 
 quotations might be adduced from a number 
 of ancient writers of different nations, and nations 
 too who could not have had it from Moses, 
 wherein the seventh day was alluded to as holy. 
 Whence did all these derive their knowledge and 
 use of weeks, confessedly an artificial measure of 
 time, if not from the tradition of a sabbath I 
 There is nothing in nature to suggest a week ; 
 nature is man's dial-plate for his years, in the 
 annual revolution of the sun ; for his months, in 
 the changing phases of the moon ; for his days, in 
 the alternations of light and darkness ; but she 
 has no fourth and intermediate finger to point out 
 the sevenths of time. Deity himself devised and 
 revealed to us our weeks. 
 
 Once more. We perceive no danger in the 
 admission, that the sabbath in the time of Moses 
 became peculiarly, though, as we shall hope to 
 shew, not exclusively, a Jewish sabbath. It be- 
 came peculiarly theirs, in being appointed unto 
 them " for a sign," as Ezekiel says, (chap. xx. 
 12;) though he, who would argue that on this 
 account, sabbaths were not existing prior to that 
 
12 
 
 appointment of them as a sign, might as well 
 argue that there never was a rainbow formed by 
 the sun's rays reflected upon faUing rain, till a 
 shower fell to make one " a sign" for Noah, It 
 became peculiarly theirs, because God selected 
 them from among the nations, as the children of 
 his promise, to be the committee of the oracles 
 of God, the dispensers of his truth to the world 
 around them ; " a nation of priests," as they are 
 termed, to be chaplains to their species, the wit- 
 nesses of Jehovah, the instruments of his pro- 
 vidence, and reflectors of his grace or justice to 
 the vast moral republic of man. Hence they 
 were located in a peculiarly central quarter of 
 the globe ; and had they been faithful to their 
 heavenly ordination, the sacred mountains of 
 Jewry might have been the pulpits of the world. 
 In this view it is evident grace was not restricted 
 to them ; how could it be so to its dispensers ? 
 Their obligations, which were not manifestly of 
 a nature peculiar to their polity, assuredly are 
 binding upon us. The ten commandments are 
 of a moral nature, and none but the Antinomian 
 denies the universal obligation of the moral law. 
 They were delivered under circumstances that 
 distinguished them, and were evidently intended 
 
13 
 
 to distinguish them from all or any other of the 
 laws of Moses. They were published amid the 
 thunders and lightnings of Mount Sinai, and 
 with the immediate voice of God. Moses merely 
 wrote the other laws in a book ; these were twice 
 written with God's own hand on tables of stone, 
 the direct symbols in ancient times of the per- 
 petuity of the record. The fourth commandment 
 was incorporated with these imperative ten. No 
 man objects to the other nine ; then " what God 
 hath joined, let no man put asunder." Let their 
 obligation be equal, and let this very command- 
 ment of the sabbath announce its own and their 
 universal obligation. Not only " the man- 
 servant and the maid-servant," who might be 
 Jews, but "the stranger also," the foreigner that 
 sojourned with them, were to keep holy the sab- 
 bath of their common Lord. " Is he the God 
 of the Jews only? Is he not also of the Gen- 
 tiles?" "One ordinance," says Moses, "shall 
 be both for you of the congregation, and for the 
 stranger that sojourneth with you, an ordinance 
 for ever." 
 
 The time would fliil us even to glance at 
 various other particulars of the philosophy 
 of a sabbath, which serve to demonstrate its 
 
14 
 
 universality. We suggest a few for your private 
 reflection and enlargement. Man was not fallen 
 when the sabbath was first given; — it comme- 
 tnorated a creation in which all men were equally 
 interested ; — was intended for devotional uses in 
 which all men are equally concerned ; — furnished 
 a day of rest which to all men is equally ne- 
 cessary ; — was a type of heaven, which to all men 
 should be equally lovely and engaging. Was it 
 a type of heaven? St. Paul so regards it, in the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews ; Jews and early Chris- 
 tians so regarded it : then, if a type, it must 
 remain in force till the antitype appears. Besides 
 universality, then, here is another feature of per- 
 petuily in the obligation. 
 
 We need not recapitulate our considerations ; 
 we trust they have enabled you satisfactorily to 
 conclude, not only that the J ewish sabbath was 
 the original one, and therefore of universal obli- 
 gation, but that the Jewish sabbath itself was 
 divinely intended, and ordained to be, during that 
 dispensation, of similarly universal obligation. 
 Then Moses only reinforced an old and esta- 
 blished institution ; — Moses was the moral law- 
 giver to the Gentiles, though through the Jews ; — 
 Moses began his Master's ministry to his own 
 
15 
 
 kindred, that Christ, when he came, might " open 
 the kingdom of heaven to all beHevers." 
 
 We shall consider our first point then, viz. 
 An original sabbath, divinely appointed to be of 
 universal obligation, as proved, and prepared for 
 the premise of our next discourse. In the mean- 
 time we apply ourselves, in conclusion, to some 
 practical use of the subject, considered thus 
 far. 
 
 We remark, first. The peculiar sanction of the 
 sabbath's dedication. God himself solemnized 
 the first sabbath of the world. A sabbath dawn, — 
 man being created on the sixth day, — was the 
 first hght that welcomed the human soul into 
 conscious existence ! The sabbath of heaven 
 was the first man knew ; the sabbath of heaven 
 is the last he hopes for : blessed be the Lord of 
 the sabbath ! Were, then, the gradations of the 
 work of creation accessory and subservient to 
 the foundation of the sabbath ? Did He, who 
 could have spoken all things into sudden and 
 immediate existence, elaborate the universe into 
 six days' creation, that his rest upon the seventh 
 might teach man the lesson of a sabbath, and 
 resolve him in how much time he should "do all 
 that he had to do," and when to rest, and pray ? 
 
16 
 
 He did all this for you and me, my brethren : 
 let us not fail to follow after his awful example. 
 
 Men are wont to attribute increased authority 
 and reverence to such institutions as are dedi- 
 cated to their respective purposes by individuals 
 of rank and power. Hence the foundation-stone 
 of public edifices are frequently laid by per- 
 sonages of eminent station: viewed in this light, 
 what greater sanction want we for our observance 
 of the sabbath ? It had been much if an emi- 
 nent saint or father of the church had appointed 
 the solemnity, or if an apostle or prophet, or 
 more, if an angel from heaven, who had also pro- 
 mised his invariable attendance on the day ; but 
 the sabbath was ordained of the Father of men 
 and angels, the omnipotent and omnipresent One, 
 who promised of old, and, as we shall hereafter 
 see, confirmed it anew, — " In all places where 
 I record my name, I will come unto thee, and I 
 will bless thee." Our annual wake-Sunday, a 
 festival strangely corrupted from its original in- 
 tention, used to bring its crowds to commemorate 
 the consecration of their church ; every sabbath 
 was a solemn wake to commemorate the building 
 of a world ; every Sunday still commemorates the 
 new creation of immortal souls ! 
 
17 
 
 " 'Twas great to speak a world from nought, 
 'Twas greater to redeem." 
 
 This is a wake which is not solemnized by a 
 mere annual or monthly celebration of the event, 
 but on every return of the wondrous day. But 
 alas, how few there are who keep these wakes ! 
 They shall swarm in busy numbers to the scenes 
 of vanity and graver wickedness with which our 
 country wakes are disgraced, but few would 
 keep even the annual Sunday, unless, like at 
 the Passover of old, because " a feast was 
 nigh." 
 
 They morally incur the taxation of our blessed 
 Lord to the selfish and carnal multitude in his 
 day, — " They follow him not because of his mi- 
 racles, but because they did eat of his loaves, and 
 were filled." Though " the bread of life sent 
 down from heaven " be freely offered them, like 
 the rebels in the wilderness, they nauseate the 
 heavenly manna, and lust after the flesh; — the 
 greatest curse that can befal them is the an- 
 swering their own wilful prayers ! 
 
 Secondly, We learn from the antiquity of the 
 sabbath a signal jiToof of God's mercy to man, 
 in its preservation so long. 
 
 Doubtless there were but few up to the age of 
 
18 
 
 Noah who enjoyed the gracious ordinance. In 
 his day its celebration was confined to a single 
 family, and yet the long-sufFering love of God 
 forebore to withdraw his means of grace from the 
 world, for the sake of that family. 
 
 Noah in the deluge, we read, sent out the dove 
 thrice, at intervals of seven days, i. e. sent her 
 out, most probably, on three successive sabbath 
 mornings. For though the whole world is 
 drowned, there is a floating chapel in the ark, 
 where Noah and his little crew celebrate their 
 lonely sabbath over the grave of creation. Were 
 the cities of the plain, and we know not how 
 many more, burned and humbled into the dust, 
 not of penitence, but of desolation? Another 
 and a blessed fire from heaven feeds the lamp of 
 the sanctuary upon the family altar of Lot! — 
 Does the wilderness devour the whole generation 
 of Moses ? J oshua and Caleb bear the day of 
 creation and of exodus into the Land of Promise. 
 Was Israel rent in twain ? Judah led captive into 
 pagan Babylonia, and " other lords continually 
 in dominion over her ? " The Son of Man when 
 he came was still Lord of an extant sabbath. 
 Are the tribes of Jacob now scattered among the 
 Gentiles, without a polity, or tribe, or ruler, or 
 
19 
 
 temple, or local habitation, or a name ? Still do 
 they bow the knee on the seventh day, albeit, 
 morally, to an unknown God. 
 
 All " this is the Lord's doing, and it is mar- 
 vellous in our eyes !" Marvellous for its wisdom ; 
 — had the Lord God suffered his sabbath to 
 fail on the earth, his testimony had perished 
 with it. Marvellous for its mercy; — had the 
 means of grace departed, the world might have 
 sighed Ichabod o'er her hope of glory. Mar- 
 vellous for its power; — considering the poor 
 minority, the little flock that God has ever had 
 in the world, it is all of God alone, that the 
 enemies of truth have not been able to quench 
 it for 6000 years. Marvellous for its glory ; — 
 though weak and fallen beings have had the 
 custody of the ordinance, still it survives, and 
 has been the constant means of glory to God. 
 We believe there never was a period, that the 
 earth was without a living witness of Jehovah ; 
 and, therefore, we believe there never was a 
 period, in which a sabbath was wholly neglected. 
 Never did the sabbath sun float across the blue 
 arch of heaven, without smiling upon some lonely 
 worshipper of God, somewhere, upon his knees. 
 Has he never risen and set again, my brethren, 
 
20 
 
 without witness of your worship ? Oh, if each 
 one began to enumerate the sabbaths he had 
 violated since he was first conscious of a Lord's- 
 day, what a black list most of us would have to 
 render up before the tribunal of conscience ! A 
 heavier summons to account lies before us, bre- 
 thren ; then give it up at once; "judge your- 
 selves" before the bosom God within you, lest 
 before a more open, dread, and final bar, " ye be 
 judged of the Lord." " Humble yourselves in 
 the sight of God, and he will lift you up," — lift 
 you up from the dust and ashes of repentance 
 here, and from the dust and ashes of the sepulchre 
 hereafter, and " lift you up for ever." Be not 
 ashamed of " the sighing of a contrite heart ;" 
 though man may deride it, it is that which 
 " thou, O God, wilt not despise." The world 
 may call it a weakness, but it is a weakness in 
 which God's strength will be made perfect. 
 Man knows not that the soul is never so noble 
 as when she confesses, " Behold, I am vile ;" and 
 never so strong, as when most conscious of her 
 own weakness ; and never so safe, as when most 
 alarmed at her spiritual dangers : " that which is 
 highly esteemed among men, is abomination 
 in the sight of God ;" and on ths contrary, man 
 
21 
 
 despises that which God " delighteth to honour." 
 Come then, ye professing Christians, become the 
 apostle's Jew in spirit, " whose praise is not of 
 men, but of God." 
 
 Thirdly. We learn from our reasoning on the 
 subject, how gratuitous their scepticism, who 
 avail themselves of the silence of scripture, to 
 speak against the Divine authority of a sabbath. 
 
 Why would they make the sabbath a mere 
 ecclesiastical, a human appointment? Would 
 they rob the ordinance of its sanction, to neutra- 
 lize the penalty of its violation? "No," may 
 some of them answer; "our only object is the 
 truth, and nothing beyond the truth." Alas, many 
 a good and many a great mind has been beguiled 
 by the evil one, on the very point where they 
 thought they were disarming him. It is unsafe 
 to put off the shield of faith, even in the search 
 after the truth of her doctrines. Can the mere 
 negative ground, which is all they have for their 
 assault, be enough to warrant their questioning 
 the authority of a positive means of grace ; an 
 ordinance of acknowledged blessedness ; of para- 
 mount necessity to the well-being of religion ? 
 Whatever show of reason may be seen in their 
 argument, there surely is none in the object of 
 
22 
 
 their proof. The Lord save us from the pre- 
 sumptuous use of faculties ; and especially keep 
 us from ever violating this holy day, from any 
 fond conceit of its being a man's foundling, an 
 ordinance of human device, and therefore of non- 
 essential observance ! 
 
 Fourthly. We learn from the originality of 
 the sabbath, subject of thankfulness to God, that 
 though man fell from God's presence in Eden, he 
 fell not from his spiritual presence on the sab- 
 bath. Though he lost paradise, he lost not 
 that which every week made a paradise restored, — 
 the presence of a prayer-answering God. We 
 know not how Adam solemnized his sabbath in 
 the garden, but paradise must have had more 
 heaven in it on the Lord's day. It would to 
 innocent man be a time of refreshing from the 
 presence of the Lord ; but to the fallen man, 
 how sweet in mercy, how rich in grace, how 
 likely to remind him of that happy state from 
 which he fell, and to quicken his hopes of that 
 better state, to which the covenant of grace pre- 
 pared him to rise again ! 
 
 Though a very rebel and ingrate, God still 
 deigns to speak with him ; and his language is a 
 promise to the first offender's seed, " that it 
 
23 
 
 should bruise the head of the serpent ;" their 
 own sentence was fulfilled already, the serpent 
 had " bruised their heel," and made them fall ; 
 Adam felt the first was done, he believed the 
 second would be ; but we, my brethren, believe 
 them both accomplished, and the Blessed One 
 that bruised the last has thereby healed the first. 
 Has he done it for you, my brethren ? Beside the 
 serpent's head, has he bruised in your bosom the 
 serpent's heart? In " the old" Adam we are all 
 " born in sin," and in " the old serpent" " all shapen 
 in iniquity." We are hereby liable to another 
 fall ; as the first with Adam, so the next with 
 Satan. The first fall was grievous, but the next 
 will be without remedy ; the first was from para- 
 dise, the next will be from heaven : and sure as, 
 at the first, man fell into sin, so sure, at the 
 next, will he fall into hell. There, already, 
 weep the fallen angels, living evidences of the 
 justice that endureth for ever ; and ' ' if God 
 spared not the angels that sinned" — you know the 
 sequel ; the argument and appeal is St. Peter's : 
 carry it home, my brethren, let it dwell within 
 your bosoms ; — if He spared not the beings who 
 had no second offer of mercy, no second proba- 
 tion, no sabbath for their souls for ever, how shall 
 
24 
 
 he spare man, highly-favoured, yet finally impe- 
 nitent man, who has twice fallen, who both 
 robbed the tree of knowledge and destroyed the 
 tree of life ? 
 
 God help us to be merciful to our own souls ! 
 
 Lastly. As at the first sabbath man was un- 
 fallen, and he kept it in that state of innocence in 
 which he was created ; so the last sabbath, of 
 which the former is but a type, must be entered 
 upon in the same innocence, and this must be 
 the effect of a new creation. None but new 
 creatures will be admitted into the sabbath of 
 sabbaths above. Then, brethren, our reflections 
 have brought us to the conclusion, " Ye must be 
 born again." Nothing short of the new birth 
 unto righteousness will enable us to profit by 
 the weekly sabbath here, or the eternal one here- 
 after. Then let us pray, my brethren, to be 
 delivered out of " this body of death," into " the 
 hidden life in Christ ;" to be born again, not of 
 the flesh, but of the spirit ; for the more we look 
 into ourselves, the more we find that we need a 
 change of heart, a change of life and conversa- 
 tion, a change of views of revealed truth, a change 
 of tastes and appetites, a change of hopes and 
 aspirations, that we may at last be thought 
 
25 
 
 worthy, through grace, of that final and everlast- 
 ing change, by His commission and promise, 
 " who shall change our vile body, that it may be 
 like unto his glorious body, according to the 
 working, whereby he is able to subdue all things 
 unto himself." But if the soul be not changed 
 here, the body will not be changed hereafter : 
 time is the school-room of eternity. Oh, that we 
 may learn its awful lessons " to-day, while it is 
 called to-day, before the night cometh," when no 
 man can learn, when all must go home, when 
 probations must end, and glory or condemnation 
 begin their eternity ! 
 
 c 
 
SERMON II. 
 
 THE SUBSTITUTION OF THE FIRST FOR THE 
 SEVENTH DAY. 
 
 Mark II. 27, 28. 
 " The Sahhath ivas made for man, and not man for the 
 Sabbath: therefore the Son of Man is Lord also of the 
 Sabbath." 
 
 In our last discourse we arrived at the con- 
 clusion, that the sabbath observed by the Jews 
 was none other than the original day, which we 
 first shewed God had ordained in the beginning. 
 Upon which principle we demonstrated its uni- 
 versal obligation, and from other sources also 
 we discovered its perpetuity. Our next busi- 
 ness will naturally be to inquire, whether the 
 gospel dispensation disannulled this obligation ; 
 or, in other words, whether the substitution of 
 the first for the seventh day of the week, has 
 deprived the sabbath of its original sanction 
 and authority ? 
 
 The sabbath was part of that law, of which 
 Divine authority declared, " that heaven and 
 earth should pass away, but his law should not 
 
27 
 
 pass away till all be fulfilled : " that is, plainly, 
 to the end of the world, or so long as there 
 were any subjects of its obedience in existence. 
 The ordinance, then, is perpetual. But the 
 sabbath consists of two parts — the holy rest, 
 and the day on which it is observed. A variety 
 of considerations will be presently adduced to 
 show, that the suhsiance of the institution might 
 remain unaltered, though the precise day of 
 celebration were changed ; and if the change 
 was effected by an authority equal to that of the 
 original appointment, men may not only lawfully 
 observe the sabbath so changed, but they have 
 no discretionary choice about the obligation. 
 If our former proofs of the universality and 
 perpetuity of the obligation served up to the 
 period of the gospel, we shall now preface our 
 discourse with the inquiry, whether " the 
 Author and Finisher of our faith" himself abro- 
 gated the sabbath. If he did not, but, on the 
 contrary, observed it, then the sabbath is con- 
 firmed in the gospel dispensation. 
 
 Let us, then, ask the Evangelists, his sacred 
 biographers, and we find he regularly mingled 
 in the public worship of God on the sabbath- 
 days. If we turn to Luke iv. 16, we find it 
 c2 
 
28 
 
 said of our Lord, " He came to Nazareth, 
 where he had been brought up : and, as his 
 custom was, he went into the synagogue on the 
 sahhath-day, and stood up for to read." In the 
 face of this decisive passage, however, our text 
 is quoted as a proof against our Lord's observ- 
 ance of the sabbath ; but we trust that a Httle 
 regard to the circumstances under which the 
 words were uttered, will rather prove them to 
 form another argument in favour of our posi- 
 tion. Our Lord used the text in answer to the 
 complaint of the Pharisees, that his disciples 
 had plucked the ears of corn, alleging that 
 such an act was unlawful on the sabbath-day. 
 The same objection had been raised when he 
 healed the woman of her eighteen years' infir- 
 mity. Jesus, therefore, as his custom was, 
 chose the opportunity which the occasion offered 
 to rebuke the Pharisees (who had corrupted 
 every thing, and the sabbath among the rest,) 
 for their " teaching for doctrines the command- 
 ments of men." He declared, therefore, that 
 works of charity and of necessity were allowed 
 by the law of God; and, on another occasion, 
 referred them to the precept that contained the 
 allowance. The meaning, then, of the passage, 
 
29 
 
 is clearly this; "The sabbath was made for 
 man," — for man's good, — and, therefore, all such 
 works as man's good rendered necessary, were 
 lawful. " Man was not made for the sabbath 
 man was created before the sabbath ; man was 
 not adapted to the sabbath, but the sabbath 
 to man ; " therefore the Son of Man," in his 
 office, as peculiar minister to man's necessities, 
 " is Lord of the sabbath," is lawfully employed 
 when thus devoting it to some of the purposes 
 of its original institution; and Lord of it, in 
 rejecting " those traditions of men which made 
 void the commandments of God." Was this 
 any case of violation of the sabbath ? on the 
 contrary, it honoured the day. Our Lord 
 himself, then, kept the sabbath-day holy: — did 
 he then intend his gospel to abrogate it ? We 
 observed before, that the enforcement of the 
 sabbath was contained in the tables of the 
 moral, i. e. the perpetual law. These tables 
 our Lord frequently alluded to in terms of 
 especial reverence ; he called them, by way of 
 eminence, *' The Commandments," and thus 
 distinguished them from the other precepts of 
 Moses, just as the Bible, literally the Book, is 
 also styled " the Scriptures," to distinguish it 
 
30 
 
 from any other book or writing. He declared, 
 " Whosoever shall break one of these least com- 
 mandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be 
 called least in the kingdom of heaven ; but 
 whosoever shall do and teach them, shall be 
 called great in the kingdom of heaven." By 
 the kingdom of heaven (a metaphorical expres- 
 sion, borrowed from the Jewish theocracy) is 
 here meant, the gospel dispensation. Evidently 
 then, these commandments of the moral law 
 were confirmed in the gospel. The sabbath 
 was one of these commandments ; therefore, the 
 sabbath is confirmed in the gospel, unless it 
 can be shown some subsequent and special 
 exception is recorded against it. Now no such 
 exception is any where to be found, pretended 
 or otherwise; but, on the contrary, every pre- 
 vious or subsequent allusion our Lord makes to 
 the sabbath, favours the perpetuity of its obli- 
 gation. Hence, when he foresaw the desolation 
 and fall of Jerusalem, a period at which the 
 gospel was upwards of thirty years' establishment, 
 he speaks of the sabbath as then still in ex- 
 istence : " Pray ye that your flight," says he, 
 " be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath- 
 day ; " that ye may avoid the necessity of either 
 
31 
 
 violating the ordinance by travel, or submitting 
 to destruction. 
 
 On the whole, then, we conclude, since our 
 Lord himself observed the sabbath; since the 
 commandments, of which the observance of the 
 sabbath forms a part, were declared by him to 
 be binding under the gospel dispensation ; since 
 no exception was made to that particular com- 
 mandment of the sabbath, either by the Lord 
 or his disciples ; therefore the sabbath does not 
 expire with the Jewish dispensation, but is deci- 
 dedly confirmed in the gospel. 
 
 Having ascertained this important fact, we 
 proceed to the question, whether the substitution 
 of the first for the seventh day of the week 
 affects this confirmation, or deprives our sabbath 
 of the original sanction and authority of the former. 
 In order to this, it may be profitable to inquire, 
 
 1. Whether there were not sundry Jewish 
 peculiarities attached to the sabbath, which 
 rendered a change of the day, under the gospel 
 dispensation, desirable. 
 
 IL Whether such a change was actually 
 made by competent authority. 
 
 in. Whether this change accorded in its 
 circumstances with the doctrine of a sabbath. 
 
32 
 
 And, finally, we shall deduce from the whole, 
 the obligation of the christian sabbath. 
 
 May He whose infinite love, and wisdom, 
 and condescension, " made the sabbath for 
 man," sanctify our reflections to our saving 
 conviction of its importance to the welfare of our 
 souls ! 
 
 I. There ivere some Jewish peculiarities 
 which rendered a change of the sabbath-day 
 desirable, under the gospel dispensation. " No 
 man," saith our Lord, " putteth new wine into 
 old bottles ;" and what was applied to fasting, 
 may be seen to apply to our question. The 
 peculiarity of interest to the Jews in the sabbath 
 commemorating their deliverance from Egypt 
 on that day, could not fail of rendering the 
 same sabbath an inconvenient day of memorial 
 to those whose ancestors had experienced no 
 such deliverance. It would have perpetuated 
 that mark of exclusiveness about the Jews, 
 which it was one prominent feature in the gospel 
 to put away : it would have kept up too much 
 of " the middle wall of partition." But a 
 day that should commemorate a greater, a more 
 permanent deliverance, and one that was equally 
 and universally interesting, would be manifestly 
 
33 
 
 preferable for the new race of sabbath-keepers, 
 brought into covenant by the gospel. 
 
 2. The sabbath, as we observed in our last, 
 was appointed for "a sign" of God's covenant 
 with the Jews; but when a new and better 
 covenant was made, not with the Jews only, but 
 with the Gentiles also, that should bring in the 
 whole house of Adam, surely that sabbath-day 
 should pass away with the particular covenant 
 of which it was " the sign," that another should 
 be substituted in its place, universal in its 
 references as the covenant it commemorates. 
 
 3. The ceremonial and judicial economy of the 
 Jewish observance of the sabbath rendered their 
 manner further unfit for universal adoption. Cere- 
 mony was to end. The penalty of death imposed 
 upon every ritual violation of the day, was not 
 accordant with the spirit of the gospel of peace, 
 was not suited to a dispensation adapted for 
 the universal embrace of man. It was pro- 
 fitable for its appointed time to the Jews as a 
 people, but was not intended, as it was not 
 fitted, for the general body of mankind. 
 
 These considerations may serve to show the 
 desirableness of a day more comprehensive in 
 the objects of its celebration, more generally 
 c 3 
 
34 
 
 interesting in its association of events, and more 
 congenial to the spirit of the new dispensation 
 in the nature of its requirements. 
 
 II, We inquire whether this change of the 
 sabbath was actually made, and by competent 
 aidhority. 
 
 We have this day sanctified the first day of 
 the week instead of the seventh. We received it 
 from the missionaries who converted our island ; 
 they received it from their fathers ; and eccle- 
 siastical history informs us, that the same day 
 has been the unanimous sabbath of all christian 
 nations, up to the time of the apostles. How 
 was it, then, that christian churches became so 
 early and so universally unanimous in their 
 adoption of this day ? If we turn to the Word 
 of God, we shall soon discover by what autho- 
 rity " old things passed away," and the old 
 sabbath among the rest, " and all things be- 
 came new." 
 
 " I was in the Spirit," says St. John, the 
 last survivor of the apostles, " on the Lord's- 
 day." But every day is the Lord's ; this definite 
 day was, therefore, some peculiar one, presumed 
 to be known to the seven churches, to whom he 
 was about to write. What other day was this 
 
35 
 
 likely to be, than the same to which frequent 
 previous allusion had been made, in other parts 
 of the evangelists' and apostles' writings? 
 the day which the Lord had made peculiarly 
 his own, by rising that day from the tomb ? 
 There is not a single instance in which the old 
 sabbath is so named; the Lord's-day must, 
 therefore, refer to one generally known and 
 observed by Christians towards the close of the 
 first century, when the Apocalypse was written. 
 The appellation was probably borrowed from 
 the 118th Psalm, where David, celebrating 
 the future stone, that was to become the head 
 stone of the corner, exclaims, " This is the day 
 which the Lord hath made ; we will rejoice, and 
 be glad in it," 
 
 Well might the veteran apostle feel himself 
 in the Spirit on such a day ! — it was on that 
 day God the Son arose from the dead, and 
 appeared to him and his sainted fellows ; — it was 
 on that day God the Holy Ghost sanctified 
 their last Pentecost by the outpouring of his 
 Spirit upon them ; — it was on that day the little 
 band of apostolic missionaries met in secret at 
 Jerusalem, to devise the evangelization of a 
 world ! 
 
36 
 
 We can trace allusions to these weekly meet- 
 ings up to the first day of that week, the 
 memory of whose marvellous events shall 
 survive, when time and its divisions be forgotten 
 eternally. We refer your attention first to 
 John XX. 19, which contains the account of 
 Jesus's first visit to his disciples on the day of 
 his resurrection. That he should visit them on 
 that day may not seem remarkable, except in 
 connexion with his next visit, which did not 
 take place till the following first day of the 
 week, when we read, in the 26th verse, his 
 disciples were again assembled. Why did he 
 conceal himself? Why withdraw his Divine 
 presence for the whole week, if not to intimate 
 his approval of their devoting the day of his 
 resurrection to solemn assembly ? 
 
 We have not time to dwell upon other refer- 
 ences to this first day of the week. From that 
 allusion in Acts xx. 7, and in 1 Cor. xvi. 2, we 
 find these meetings were for devotional pur- 
 poses, and that alms were then collected for the 
 poor, as was the custom on the Jewish sabbath, 
 so that these days were observed as sabbaths; 
 and though on occasions we find the disciples 
 also conforming to the Jewish sabbath, the 
 
37 
 
 expediency of this act excused their compliance : 
 not to mention it was the only day they could 
 get public speech to a Jewish congregation, and 
 not to mention there was no evil in two sab- 
 baths the same week. It were no harm if, in a 
 devotional sense, we all observed a seventh, or 
 a sabbath-part, of every day. 
 
 Why then, may we be asked, did not our 
 Lord speak plainly? Why are we left merely 
 to infer the Divine sanction of so important an 
 event as the change of the sabbath ? The cir- 
 cumstance may be accounted for from two consi- 
 derations, touching both the character of our Lord 
 himself, and the circumstances of his disciples. 
 
 Touching our Lord, " He came not to de- 
 stroy, but to fulfil the law;" not to alter, but 
 to obey; for " thus it behoved him to fulfil 
 all righteousness." He was circumcised, was 
 baptized, kept the Passover, began his ministry 
 at thirty, and in all things was perfect in the 
 law of God, that when the sacrifice was offered 
 up on Calvary, it might be a Lamb without 
 blemish and without spot." Consequently, as 
 " the Christ," he could, and he did, alter 
 nothing ; but after his resurrection, the character 
 he sustained in relation to the law of God, was, 
 
38 
 
 as he announced it on the cross, " finished." 
 He had accompHshed all ; he was now no longer 
 delegate, but strictly autocrat: " all power," 
 said he, " is given unto me in heaven and in 
 earth." By the act, then, of his resurrection 
 on the first day of the week, by his lying in the 
 grave the preceding day, and thus refusing that 
 honour to the old sabbath, an act that could 
 not have been the effect of accident, for " the 
 Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" 
 met his death " in due time," at a known, 
 decreed, and appointed time, for there is 
 nothing accidental in the ways of Providence; 
 by his twice, if not oftener, repeated visita- 
 tions to his disciples, after weekly intervals on 
 that day; by his mission of the promised Holy 
 Ghost on that day ; and, may we not add, by the 
 evident tokens of his blessing on the means of 
 grace ever since employed on that day; by all 
 these emphatic indications of his will, are we not 
 sufficiently authorized in inferring his Divine 
 appointment of the first in the stead of the seventh 
 day's observance of a sabbath ? But why not 
 decide it by a positive precept? Let the cir- 
 cumstances of the disciples answer for this 
 omission. He forbore on their account ; he had 
 
39 
 
 already himself tried the fury of Jewish pre- 
 judice on the point of the sabbath, and there- 
 fore felt for his little flock of poor, despised, 
 and friendless disciples, who were about to 
 commence their ministry among the most stern 
 and bigoted religionists on earth. Well he 
 knew, that had they began at once openly to 
 abolish the Jewish sabbath, and declare pub- 
 licly their reasons of the substitution of the 
 new one, that all the body of the disciples had 
 certainly been accused, under the old law, of 
 violation of the sabbath, and, according to its 
 penalty, be put to death. Nothing but a con- 
 tinual miraculous interference had prevented this 
 result ; and, therefore, as the disciples were, by 
 every lawful means, to conciliate their country- 
 men, by giving them the honour of their first ser- 
 mons, and becoming, in an innocent degree, " all 
 things to all men, that by any means they might 
 save some, surely these considerations are a 
 sufficiently natural explanation why no formal 
 announcement of the change of the sabbath 
 took place, but that the fact would be left to be 
 inferred from our Lord's visits, and from the 
 practice of the apostles. 
 
 III. We inquire whether this change 
 
40 
 
 accorded in its circumstatices with the doctrine 
 of a sabbath. In whatever light we view the 
 day, now substituted for the seventh, in all the 
 uses of a sabbath, its desirableness is abundantly 
 manifest, as also its accordance, every way, with 
 the intention of a sabbath. 
 
 We may remark this accordance in four points 
 of view. 
 
 1. As a day of commemoration. If the 
 former sabbath celebrated the creation of a 
 world, the latter celebrates an event of infinitely 
 higher importance, of infinitely more moment to 
 man, and glory to God, — the redemption of a 
 world, — a new creation. The first was after a 
 glorious work, the next after a glorious sacrifice, 
 of God. Both referred to Deity, and both com- 
 memorate completion and rest, " for he that is 
 entered into his rest;" says the apostle, " he also 
 hath ceased from his own works, as God did from 
 his :" and both these great works, the former 
 creation and the new moral creation, are still 
 substantially observed. Still one day's rest in 
 seven, preceded by six days of secular labour, 
 commemorates the work of creation, and the 
 Almighty's rest at its conclusion ; hence, still in 
 our prayers we glorify " God the Father, maker 
 
41 
 
 of heaven and earth ;" though the institution of 
 the sabbath has been so enlarged, that we might 
 also glorify " God the Son, who for us men, and 
 for our salvation, came down from heaven." 
 
 2. We remark this accordance with the 
 doctrine of a sabbath as a day of rest. Still the 
 original precept is obeyed, of consecrating, as at 
 first, one day in seven. It is evident the parti- 
 cular day is not of so much moment as the prin- 
 ciple involved in the devotion to God's service, 
 of a seventh of our time. It is physically im- 
 possible that all the world could be unanimous 
 in their observance of the same identical day. 
 The form of the earth, and its relation to the 
 sun, prevent such a coincidence ; since, when 
 with us it would be sabbath-day, it would be 
 with our antipodes the next night ; so that there 
 would always necessarily be one day's difference 
 in the period of celebration. He who " made 
 the round world, and them that dwell therein," 
 was aware of this peculiarity when he left the 
 sabbatic law, at its original institution, in general 
 terms. A seventh day is sanctified, but not a 
 word of that seventh day being fixed for the end 
 of every succeeding week. In the words of the 
 law in Exod. xx. 11, the blessing is not annexed 
 
42 
 
 to the seventh day, but to the sabbath, which 
 seems to intimate that the importance is of the 
 institution, and not of the day on which it is 
 celebrated. The seventh day was necessarily 
 blessed at the original institution, because in the 
 nature of things no other sabbath- day could be 
 then blessed, except the first that existed. But 
 God's alteration of the blessing, and consecration 
 in the decalogue, from the day, to the sabbath 
 generally, saves the christian church from that 
 doubt and anxiety which a confirmation of the 
 blessing on a particular day had probably 
 excited. Then the change of the day of cele- 
 bration has not affected the principle of the sab- 
 bath. We have still an equal rest, still the 
 original proportion of labour. To us the substi- 
 tution of one day for the other presents a 
 sensible change ; but to Him who is " the same 
 yesterday, to-day, and for ever," " with whom 
 there is no variableness, neither shadow of turn- 
 ing," it is still the same sabbath. There is a 
 difference to man, but there is identity with God. 
 
 3. We remark this accordance with the 
 doctrine of a sabbath, touching Divine appoint- 
 ment. If our foregoing reflections on the share 
 our Lord had in the appointment of the christian 
 
43 
 
 sabbath, be deemed satisfactory, his immediate 
 authority in the institution confers equal sanc- 
 tion on the new ordinance, with that which the 
 old possessed. At all events, it is clear the 
 ordinance was appointed by the apostles ; they 
 were men acting under the direct influence of the 
 Spirit promised to '* guide them into all truth ;" 
 they were but the clerks or amanuenses of the 
 Holy Ghost; whatever institution, therefore, 
 they enforced, is binding upon us, with all the 
 imperativeness of a Divine authority. 
 
 4. There is also the accordance with a 
 sabbath, as a day of devotional exercises. These 
 could not be ill-affected by any mere change of 
 day, but the interests of piety may be materially 
 consulted in a change to a day, that associates 
 in its return the remembrance of the grandest 
 act of God to man. If devotional feeling be 
 more likely to be quickened at the consideration 
 of God's infinite love, than of his infinite power, 
 the day that celebrates the consummation of a 
 world's redemption is a preferable one for a 
 sabbath, than that which merely celebrates a 
 world's creation : much more desirable is the 
 adoption of a day which serves virtually to com- 
 memorate both the work of power and the labour 
 
of love. At all events, it cannot be denied but \ 
 what the sabbath has been the constant and i 
 continued means of glorifying God in the con- ^ 
 version of thousands of souls. It is evidently, 
 therefore, a wise ordinance ; and those who deny 
 its Divine appointment, attribute to man's inven- 
 tion an ordinance which has been the most 
 important to religion, and which it was impos- 
 sible for an all-wise God to overlook. 
 
 We cannot here enlarge further on this point ; 
 we trust to demonstrate the fitness of the day of 
 resurrection, rather than any other event in the 
 Redeemer's life, for a day of christian commemo- 
 ration, in our next discourse. Upon the whole, 
 we conclude, and we need not recapitulate the 
 evidence, that the sabbath has been confirmed in 
 all its original sanction and authority by the 
 gospel of Christ. This gospel is an universal 
 and perpetual dispensation ; the sabbath, there- 
 fore, which it has incorporated and established 
 with it, must be also of an universal and perpe- 
 tual obligation. We leave the proofs upon your 
 consciences, and in the mean time, we turn, in 
 conclusion, to some brief practical use of our 
 investigations. 
 
 1. We learn, from our reflections, the incon- 
 
45 
 
 sistency of any professor of Christianity denying 
 the duty of observing as holy, the day on which 
 Christ, whose sacred name he assumes, triumphed 
 over the grave. Do they " profess and call them- 
 selves Christians," and yet think lightly of a 
 day, when " the Christ" most fully proved him- 
 self to be their God ? — a day, without whose 
 mighty deed of resurrection the doctrines they 
 confess had never reached their knowledge ;■ — a 
 day, when God the Saviour triumphed over 
 death, " and him that had the power of death, 
 that is, the devil ;" not for himself, that he had 
 done already in heaven, but for us, he van- 
 quished him in earth and hell; a day, that 
 accomplished the office of the Son of Man, and 
 resumed the glory of the Son of God ? Has 
 earth, in her history, any deed so wonderful ? 
 Surely heaven has no tale so marvellous as this. 
 Is it not a day, then, most worthy of devout 
 remembrance, and of thankful celebration ? An- 
 gels in their songs, on earth and in heaven, have 
 eulogized the common wonder ; and shall man, 
 on whose behalf the charity of heaven has been 
 taxed to the utmost, — shall he alone, though the 
 only being who receives the boon, — shall he 
 alone, thankless, fallen, undeserving man, esteem 
 
46 
 
 " the gift of God, which is eternal life," unwor- 
 thy of a day appointed to receive it? It is not 
 enough to hold you excused, that you may con- 
 sider the sabbath obligation to be not sufficiently 
 revealed : it is the sign of a backslider to 
 appeal to revelation for the excuse of his neglect 
 of particular duties. Had, indeed, revelation con- 
 tained all that some men's stubborn faith and 
 exorbitant expectation demand, the evange- 
 list's hyperbole would lose much of its emphasis, 
 when he said, " The world would not contain 
 the books that should be written." Revelation 
 chiefly confines itself to the discovery of princi- 
 ples ; it leaves man to their illustration in practice. 
 But God has other ways of revealing truth to 
 man ; to take the sabbath for our instance, is it 
 not clearly revealed as an owned and sanctified 
 means of grace? Has it not been revealed in 
 the conversion of many a sinner in these means ? 
 Has it not been often revealed to you, in the 
 mute reproof of conscience on your neglect of 
 these means ? and has it not been revealed in the 
 injury done by your ill example on the sabbath ? 
 These, my brethren, are revelations distinct as 
 the written word ; and for the deaf ear, the blind 
 eye, and misunderstanding heart, which you have 
 
47 
 
 opposed to them, " God will bring you to judg- 
 ment." " The queen of Sheba shall rise up in 
 the judgment" against this sabbath-breaking 
 generation, and condemn it, for she came from 
 far to see the Temple, and hear the wisdom of 
 Solomon ;" but many of you, who have the word 
 of God nigh you, come not to the sanctuary, 
 though to hear the wisdom, and feel the spiritual 
 presence, of that greater than Solomon that is 
 here. Turn, then, my brethren, and reflect 
 upon these points again ; consider what a sorry 
 answer it would serve you in the day of judg- 
 ment to avow, " I violated the Lord's-day, be- 
 cause I thought the church appointed it." How 
 much safer to be enabled, by God's grace, to 
 answer, " Lord, I have loved and kept thy sab- 
 bath, whether I could satisfy myself they were 
 of thine appointment or not: I felt it was so, 
 and I humbly trusted to keep them holy to thee ; 
 thou hast grace to pardon the imperfection of 
 our best services." 
 
 2. We learn from our reflections on the prin- 
 ciple of a sabbath, how reasonable the service 
 required of us — but one day in seven. Well 
 may the sabbath bell be said to call us " to ser- 
 vice," for it is not to sacrifice ; it is to the service 
 
48 
 
 of our God, and service to ourselves. Our God, 
 to whom belong all our days, has been content 
 to require of us the mere sevenths of our exist- 
 ence. But of that even, how much we M'ere unable 
 to render during the unconsciousness of infancy 
 and childhood ; and how much has been lost in 
 our days of carelessness, and forgetfulness of 
 God ! Brethren, let us now ask ourselves, how 
 much are we in arrears ? Have we not a heavy 
 debt upon our consciences ? and even on those 
 sabbaths that we have attended the public ser- 
 vices, have we not defrauded our Lord of the 
 greater part of the day ? Have we not divided 
 that day, the whole of which is his, between God 
 and mammon ? Could we consider we had done 
 a day's work for a master, according to the flesh, 
 if we had wrought only two hours in the morn- 
 ing, and two in the evening ? especially, if even 
 in that brief space we had wrought carelessly, 
 and to no purpose ? especially, too, if our bene- 
 volent employer, on consideration of our weak- 
 ness, had required of us to work for him but one 
 day, yet nevertheless paid us for the whole 
 week? If we thought so, surely the master, 
 on the day of reckoning, would tell us " his 
 thoughts were not as our thoughts ;" and shall not 
 
49 
 
 the Lord require his sabbaths at our hands? 
 Brethren, let us look to this ; let our future sab- 
 baths be the full sevenths, and whole burnt offer- 
 ings ; neither let there be any half-heartedness in 
 the sacrifice. Let us reflect how small a portion of 
 our time He demands, who might exact the whole, 
 and for whom " eternity's too short to utter all his 
 praise." Let us come to his sanctuary " by the 
 mercies of God, and here present our bodies a 
 living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which 
 is our reasonable service." Let us, moreover, 
 always pray for some of the heavenly fire which 
 consumes the incense in the sanctuary, to carry 
 home in our bosom, to light the family altar. 
 Let us keep it burning throughout the week, and 
 let us return, sabbath after sabbath, for more and 
 more of the good fuel ; that whenever to our souls 
 the Bridegroom cometh, he may find us with 
 the holy oil in our lamps, ready, and watching, 
 and waiting to go in to the marriage supper of 
 the Lamb ! 
 
 Lastly. We need scarcely add, that we have 
 every encouragement to a faithful use of the 
 sacred day. 
 
 The risen Saviour, whose presence sanctified 
 this day, told his disciples at his last visit, " Lo, 
 
 D 
 
50 
 
 I am with you alway, even unto the end of the 
 world." The dispensation of his spiritual pre- 
 sence among his people was to be perpetual, 
 and also universal ; for " whenever two or three 
 are gathered together in my name, there am I, 
 in the midst," said he. But the promise just 
 quoted, was first to the apostles individually. 
 Every man is a little world within himself; every 
 man has his personal dispensation. The pro- 
 mises of God are general, but their fulfilment 
 private and individual. Though his presence be 
 promised to be in the midst of all who assemble 
 in his house of prayer, yet the blessing of that 
 presence rests only upon " the sighing of a con- 
 trite heart, and the desire of such as be sorrow- 
 ful ;" — sorrowful for sin, if it be the penitent 
 sinner ; sorrowful for " the many things in which 
 we offend all," if it be the humble saint. " I am 
 born for repentance," said one of the early 
 Fathers : but there is a birth that needeth not to 
 be repented of ; a birth, at which angels joy, that 
 a spirit-child is born for the world to come ; — a 
 birth that has no death to it; for, like Him who 
 went before us, " that holy thing that is born 
 shall be called the Son of God ;" — a birth, whose 
 Father is the Lord our God. But though he be 
 
51 
 
 the Father of the spirits of all men, his Holy 
 Spirit must be your personal, individual Father, 
 ere ye can be born again, not, as at first, for 
 time, but for eternity; not, as at first, to die, 
 but to live for ever ; not, as at first, of the will 
 of man, but of the power of God; not, as at 
 first, unto sin, but unto righteousness ; not, as at 
 first, a born captive unto Satan, but a son and 
 freedman of the Lord our Saviour ! Brethren, 
 it was for this Christ died for us : but for his 
 death, there had been for us no such birth ; but 
 for his death, there had been no such life. 
 Every sabbath that involves the remembrance 
 of that death, in its glorious resurrection, re- 
 minds us, we, too, must rise from the dead ; but 
 whether to die again the second death, or to 
 live the other life eternal, depends upon our life 
 and dying here. I reminded you, in a former 
 discourse, there was no refuge from the second 
 death hereafter, but by the second — the new 
 birth here. We might add, that this is the case 
 because the new birth unto righteousnes involves 
 the death unto sin; thus, then, there is a second 
 death this side eternity, and this is secured 
 in being born again, and living, as the apostle 
 said, " yet not I, but Christ liveth in me (as 
 D 2 
 
52 
 
 the Father in the Son) ; and the life which I 
 now Hve in the flesh, I Hve by the faith of the 
 Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself 
 for me." 
 
 Every sabbath virtually asks us, Would we 
 live such a life? Shall we be born of such a 
 birth ? Shall the Saviour, in any one of us, 
 " see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied ?" 
 God speaks to all of us, but to each indivi- 
 dually. You may come here together, but you 
 will be judged alone : you may live with the 
 multitude, but you will die singly : " two men 
 shall be in the field together, the one shall be 
 taken, the other left;" two men were on Mount 
 Calvary together, the one was taken, and the 
 other left. Yet who was to blame? Surely 
 not Him upon the middle cross; for either hand 
 of a crucified Saviour was equally extended to 
 them both ; the arms of dying love were open 
 equally wide to all that passed by ; yet but one 
 sinner gave glory to God upon the Mount that 
 witnessed the salvation of a world ! Oh, that 
 there may be another one to-night ! still is the 
 Saviour ready, spiritually, to repeat it. " To- 
 day," poor penitent evil-doer — " to-day thou 
 shall be with me in Paradise ;" to-day, thou shalt 
 
53 
 
 have thy conversation in heaven; to-day, shalt 
 thou sit down in heavenly places in Christ 
 Jesus ; to-day, shalt thou come to Mount Zion, 
 the city of the living God, the Heavenly Jeru- 
 salem ; to-day, if thou wilt hear his voice, harden 
 not your hearts, tempt him no longer, for, like 
 his mercy, so his wrath endureth for ever ; 
 to-day, while it is called to-day — it may be called 
 eternity to-morrow — turn and embrace the offered 
 love of Jesus: and then to-day shall the sabbath, 
 the type of heaven, seem like a little heaven 
 below; be in some sort heaven itself; for God 
 is here, and his presence is heaven ; and he will 
 make these sabbath-houses his heavenly places, 
 and the day of holy rest and worship a Paradise 
 of the sanctified soul ! 
 
 Oh ! that many an one now among us may 
 have full occasion, both in time and in eternity, 
 to feel — " I was glad when they said unto me, 
 Let us go into the house of the Lord." 
 
SERMON III. 
 
 PROPRIETY OF THE DAY OF RESURRECTION 
 FOR THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 
 
 1 Cor. XV. 17. 
 
 " If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, ye are yet in 
 your sins." 
 
 We approach the subject of the sabbath to-night, 
 as a day of commemoration, under circumstances 
 of universal interest to us all ; an interest derived 
 from its connexion with the doctrine of the 
 Resurrection. If we had to dwell upon its con- 
 nexion with the means of the conversion of 
 sinners, those who were already converted would 
 acquiesce in this point of its usefulness, but much 
 of its interest would be lost upon them: and if, 
 on the other hand, we dwelt upon its connexion 
 with the means of receiving God's promises to 
 believers, the careless and unmindful would 
 turn a listless ear to such a peculiarity. But 
 when we view the sabbath in its reference to an 
 
55 
 
 event in which we are all equally concerned; 
 when we view the sabbath as a type and pledge 
 of a resurrection which we must all undergo — 
 " For we must all appear before the judgment 
 seat of Christ, that every one may receive the 
 things done in his body, according to that he 
 hath done, whether it be good or bad;" — then 
 the subject aggravates its own importance, and 
 invests itself with an halo of fearful interest to 
 every living soul. The christian sabbath is a 
 sign, a pledge, a proof, a promise, of the resur- 
 rection. 
 
 In our last discourse, we endeavoured to prove 
 that the original sanction and divine authority 
 of a sabbath was confirmed in the gospel, upon 
 the first, instead of the seventh day of the week ; 
 we proceed, this evening, to exhibit to you the 
 reasonableness of selecting the day of our Lord's 
 resurrection for the christian sabbath, rather 
 than any other event of the incarnation, as it 
 appears to form a necessary episode in our 
 series. We shall notice why it was a more fitting 
 day for a sabbath than our Lord's nativity, or 
 the day of his crucifixion, or the day of his 
 ascension. All these events have, as it is meet, 
 their proper seasons of devout and thankful 
 
56 
 
 remembrance ; but we we shall inquire why the 
 resurrection called for more especial and constant 
 memorial. We shall attempt this task, by ex- 
 hibiting to your notice a variety of considera- 
 tions, which may serve to illustrate the infinite 
 importance and necessity of the doctrine of the 
 Lord's resurrection, to the very existence of 
 Christianity; — that no other event in our Lord's 
 life had been of any interest to us, but for the 
 resurrection; — that this truth fixed the sabbath 
 memorial upon the first day of the week. We 
 shall, first, touch briefly upon the evidence of the 
 fact of the resurrection ; secondly, elucidate the 
 various points that discover its necessity to the 
 whole scheme of Christianity ; and, finally, ob- 
 serve upon that sublime association of ideas which 
 the christian sabbath is intended and calculated 
 to inspire. And may He, whose gracious 
 visits made a sabbath of the resurrection-day, 
 vouchsafe His spiritual presence with us now, 
 while, in humble yet expecting trust upon His 
 blessing, we investigate "the truth as it is in 
 Jesus !" 
 
 L We briefly touch upon the evidence of the 
 fact of the resurrection. The credibility of this 
 evidence rests directly upon the credit of the 
 
57 
 
 apostles ; inferentially, upon the necessity of the 
 case, which forms our second inquiry. 
 
 We assume that Jesus lived and died, (facts 
 which even the annals of infidelity never found 
 but one man, and he a modern, seriously to 
 question,) and we shall be content with arguing 
 the fact of the resurrection from the story of the 
 evangelists, and the character of the apostles. 
 
 It is evident they themselves did neither ex- 
 pect this resurrection, or believe it at its first 
 announcement ; " for as yet they knew not the 
 Scriptures," says St. John, " that he must rise 
 again from the dead." 
 
 Nothing can be more natural and unaffected 
 than the representation of the progress of convic- 
 tion in the disciples' minds. We behold them, in 
 the evangelists' account, a lonely and disconso- 
 late assembly, brooding over the unexpected and 
 inexplicable death of their Lord and Leader, 
 whom, in their own artless language, " they 
 trusted had been he which should have redeemed 
 Israel." In common with the rest of their 
 countrymen, they had looked for, in the Mes- 
 siah, a temporal prince, and had the two sons of 
 Zebedee conceived that their Master's kingdom 
 was to begin on Calvary, they would not have 
 D 3 
 
58 
 
 asked for their places there — " the one on his 
 right hand, the other on his left." This error 
 was the source of all the failings they record of 
 themselves ; an error under which they laboured, 
 even up to the moment of our Lord's ascension, 
 for even then they asked him, " Lord, wilt thou 
 at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" On 
 the day alluded to, we find them met in mutual 
 sorrow, and the sympathy of silence. All the 
 miracles they had seen, all the wisdom they had 
 heard, all the promises they had received, and 
 all the glowing anticipation they had indulged, 
 seemed frustrated on the cross of Calvary, and 
 buried in the sepulchre of the Arimathean. Sud- 
 denly, the Magdalene and her companions bring 
 the news of iiis resurrection : they never doubted 
 these women before, yet now their tidings are 
 esteemed as idle tales — the mere mockery of hope. 
 The report is confirmed by the disciples from 
 Emmaus, and again corroborated by Peter's 
 attestation of the absence of the body from the 
 sepulchre: but still they doubted. 
 
 At length, the Lord himself appeared among 
 them; yet, instead of being convinced, still "they 
 were affrighted, supposing they saw a spirit;" and 
 even when at last he displayed to them his hands 
 
59 
 
 and feet, still overwhelmed with astonishment 
 and delight, in the precisely natural language of 
 St. Luke, " they believed not for joy, and won- 
 dered" — in common phrase, " the news appeared 
 too good to be true." But he assured them by 
 the evidence of all their sense — he ate with 
 them, drank with them, sat with them, conversed 
 with them, and " shewed himself alive after his 
 passion, by many infallible proofs, being seen of 
 them forty days, and speaking of the things per- 
 taining to the kingdom of God." The apostles, 
 therefore, were not mistaken themselves ; and 
 were they likely men to deceive others ? They 
 had neither motive or power for the act. No 
 motive; inasmuch as they would not have under- 
 gone such labours, perils, sufferings, travels, and 
 persecutions, for the sake of a doctrine which 
 they did not sincerely believe: the history of 
 man contains not a single memoir of a martyr 
 for a conscious fraud. Neither had they power. 
 The fishermen of Galilee had no more learning 
 than their craft, no more wealth or influence 
 than their nets, when they left them to become 
 " fishers of men ;" yet they ventured forth in the 
 face of all the wealthy, the powerful, and the 
 multitude, to preach a risen Saviour to them 
 
60 
 
 who had just been his murderers. Above five 
 hundred others attested their Lord's appearance 
 after his passion, and there is not an instance on 
 record of any one who recanted; on the con- 
 trary, many of them sealed the truth of the doc- 
 trine in their blood. He who can doubt the fact 
 after such a cloud of witnesses, after such moving 
 evidence, is one who would " say in his haste, all 
 men are hars" who depose a single incident 
 which his senses had not experienced. 
 
 In this state of being, man's sphere of ob- 
 servation is so contracted, that we are necessarily 
 obliged to act and speak constantly upon the 
 credit of external evidence. Character in tes- 
 timony always commands its share of influence. 
 All the value of history is founded upon that prin- 
 ciple of our nature, which inclines us to believe 
 whatever is not presently and directly opposed 
 to the conviction of our senses ; but the phi- 
 losophy of human faith demands for extraordinary 
 propositions extraordinary evidence. Such evi- 
 dence was furnished by the apostles, when they 
 proposed to man the question, " Why should it 
 be thought a thing incredible with you that God 
 should raise the dead?" True, such an event 
 is necessarily uncommon : before our Lord, it 
 
61 
 
 had happened but twice in the history of the 
 world. Deity — let us speak it with reverence — 
 is economical of miracles ; because, if they were 
 frequent, that which constitutes their usefulness, 
 as such, would cease; because, it seems incon- 
 sistent with the order of his own providence that 
 they should be more frequent than an adequate 
 cause for their interposition demands ; because, 
 if Providence had not reserved his miracles for 
 particular occasions, there had been no means of 
 particular appeal to his intelligent creatures. 
 
 But to believe a miracle, we require, as we 
 said, all but miraculous evidence; and surely 
 such evidence the martyr-witnesses of Jesus de- 
 posed before the world, in the wonderful success 
 of the doctrines they taught, and for which " they 
 gladly suffered the loss of all things." The tes- 
 timony satisfied vast numbers of their cotem- 
 poraries ; the record of that testimony in the 
 written word, and in the succession of living 
 believers, satisfies us. If history possessed not 
 such influence and authority, i. e. if man were 
 not naturally inclined to a wholesome credulity, 
 what an impediment would the contrary be to the 
 advance of human intellect and morality. How 
 few of the subliraest discoveries in art and 
 
62 
 
 science had been available, for none would have 
 began where their predecessors left off ; but 
 every succeeding generation would be groping 
 its uncertain way to the truth, without that 
 social light and assistance, which Providence, in 
 furnishing us with the means of communicating 
 our ideas, intended us to afford each other. 
 But the carnal mind is rarely sceptical touch- 
 ing the traditions of its fellow-mind; it rarely 
 doubts any evidence, except that which is con- 
 nected with Divine revelation. Where, then, 
 is the secret spring of infidelity? Surely not 
 any flaw in the evidence it scrutinizes, but in 
 the partial, biassed, flesh-bribed heart that 
 trembles at its truth. We cannot, however, 
 dwell longer upon the fact. We proceed to in- 
 vestigate — 
 
 II. The necessity of the doctrine lathe whole 
 scheme of Christianity , as asserted in the text. 
 " If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain;" 
 and mark how awfully it concerns us all, " ye 
 are yet in your sins." This resurrection, then, 
 is the key-stone of the gospel arch ; the Cephas, 
 upon which the christian church is built and 
 supported; the crowning point and conclusion 
 of the incarnation, and, therefore, the fittest and 
 
63 
 
 most worthy of signal, chief, and peculiar com- 
 memoration. 
 
 It may be profitable to elucidate this neces- 
 sity and importance in some of its more pro- 
 minent points of view. 
 
 1. We notice the necessity of the resurrection 
 to the doctrine of the atonement. 
 
 " Who is he that condemneth?" asked the 
 apostle: " it is Christ that died; yea, rather, 
 that is risen again ; who is even at the right hand 
 of God, who also maketh intercession for us." 
 In this passage, the necessity and paramount 
 importance of the resurrection to the fulfilment 
 of the object of the atonement, is clearly and fully 
 asserted. The doctrine of a crucified Saviour 
 is plainly incomplete and nugatory without the 
 doctrine of a risen Saviour. What matter that 
 the sacrifice were slain, unless it were also 
 offered ? What profit that it be offered, unless it 
 were accepted ? The great sacrifice of the J ews 
 was accepted, by the fire from heaven coming 
 down upon the altar to carry it in its chariot of 
 flame above: the slain Lamb of God was raised 
 from the altar of death, and the sacrifice 
 accepted in his ascension into glory. Thus, then, 
 the passion on the cross was the offering; the 
 
64 
 
 resurrection from the grave, God's acceptance of 
 it. But the doctrine proves more than this: 
 Christ's resurrection vpas not, like the raising of 
 Lazarus, effectuated by the visible agency of 
 Deity in the person of another party ; but Jesus 
 himself rose, in the same body in which others 
 had borne him dead to the sepulchre. Of all the 
 rest he had performed, this was the miracle 
 among miracles. If, therefore, it were so neces- 
 sary as the text asserts, to the doctrine of the 
 atonement, and this doctrine be so essential and 
 fundamental a part of Christianity, that the 
 same apostle " determined to know nothing 
 among men save Jesus Christ, and him cruci- 
 fied ;" then the doctrine of the resurrection is 
 essentially necessary to the whole fabric of 
 Christianity. Could the resurrection of a mere 
 martyred " teacher sent from God" be so 
 essential to the vital interests of Christianity? 
 Was any such necessity predicated of Moses or 
 Elias? Had the apparition of Samuel any 
 such effect upon the Jewish polity ? But Christ 
 appeared again in the body. A mere man could 
 not so raise himself; but Christ had distinctly 
 promised to do it himself : God would not work 
 a miracle to countenance a fraud. If, therefore, 
 
65 
 
 Christ arose, the fact of the resurrection proves 
 his divinity. Hence, then, the necessity of the 
 act to substantiate the Saviour's claims to 
 equahty in the Godhead; hence, the unspeak- 
 able glory, the great mystery of godliness, in 
 the redemption that is by Christ Jesus. " God was 
 in Christ, (' the Almighty's fellow,') reconcihng 
 the world unto himself, not imputing their 
 trespasses unto them." 
 
 We cannot enlarge upon this important 
 feature in the doctrine of the resurrection; there 
 are other points which invite our attention. We 
 notice, 
 
 2. The necessity of the resurrection in order 
 to undeceive the errors of the apostles. We 
 have already alluded to their ignorance of the 
 spiritual nature of Christ's kingdom. They 
 perceived no connexion between his previous 
 trials, labours, precepts, miracles, prophecies, 
 and promises, and his subsequent condemnation 
 and shameful death. They knew not that 
 " he must suffer these things, and then to enter 
 into his glory." They beheld the whole as an 
 inscrutable calamity, and fled. Evidently, then, 
 to have left them in this darkness, when they 
 alone, of all the world, were the depositaries of 
 
66 
 
 any knowledge of Christ at all, would have 
 nipped Christianity in the bud, and stopped the 
 gi'acious fountain at its source. But when he 
 unexpectedly arose, he fully proved his passion 
 was voluntary — was, therefore, directed to some 
 end. Now every doubt vanishes ; now every 
 mystery is explained ; " their eyes were opened, 
 and they understood the Scriptures." They 
 could now preach, that " without blood there is 
 no remission of sins;" and yet point to that 
 great High Priest, " who needeth not daily, as 
 those high priests (of the temple), to offer up 
 sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the 
 people's ; for this he did once, when he offered 
 up himself:" and the sanction of the doctrine 
 rests upon the fact, that Christ " is not entered 
 into the holy places made with hands, which are 
 the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, 
 now to appear in the presence of God for us." 
 But the apostles were not the only persons to 
 be undeceived ; we notice, 
 
 3. The resurrection was necessary to silence 
 unbelief, and confound the Saviour's perse- 
 cutors. 
 
 When the priests and people had succeeded 
 in procuring his death, they vainly flattered 
 
67 
 
 themselves his doctrines and his name were 
 ahke silenced in the tomb. For a brief space 
 (how emblematic of the prosperity of the wicked), 
 three short days only, infidelity triumphed, and 
 the enemies of truth congratulated each other ; 
 but on the third day, when the sign of Jonas 
 and of the temple was fulfilled, when the Lord 
 was " perfected," though the watchmen of his 
 enemies beleaguered his resting-place, he arose 
 like a giant refreshed with sleep, and before, 
 even in a natural process, the decomposition of 
 his body had commenced, the Holy One, who 
 was not to be left in hell, nor to see corruption, 
 shook off, like the Nazarite, " the green withes 
 and cords" of the grave, carried away the gates 
 of death, and appeared among his troubled and 
 abashed adversaries, as the Lord, mighty to 
 save! 
 
 The pitiful subterfuge of the Sanhedrim (a 
 subterfuge they were ashamed ever to repeat), to 
 disprove his resurrection, is the strongest proof 
 of the fact, which the extremity of embarrassed 
 malice could betray. If he had not risen, 
 how painfully different had been the issue! 
 The bitter taunt of the degenerate priests had 
 been true to the letter: " He saved others, 
 
68 
 
 himself he cannot save." If he had not risen, 
 what answer could be given to the refusal, when 
 they tempted him with the plea, " Let him 
 come down from the cross, and then we will 
 believe him." 
 
 Oh the matchless subtlety and delusion of the 
 tempter in that awful moment! It was not 
 enough he had in his own person probed him 
 during the pangs of hunger, with the bait, " If 
 thou be the Son of God, command that these 
 stones be made bread ;" he now must tempt him 
 by the agency of others with another if: " If 
 thou be the Christ, come down from the cross." 
 Full well the serpent felt his head was being 
 bruised ; full well he knew, that if the Christ had 
 come down from the cross, the atonement had not 
 been consummated ; he, the evil one, had still pos- 
 sessed the sword of the destroying angel, for the 
 door-posts of the house of Adam had never been 
 sprinkled with the blood of the Lamb of God, 
 that taketh away the sins of the world. But 
 further, these very priests in some sort suspected 
 there would be a resurrection. " Destroy this 
 temple," said our Lord, " and in three days I 
 will raise it up," though, at the time they were 
 uttered, the Jews maliciously construed these 
 
69 
 
 expressions as referring to their material temple, 
 yet their duplicity and stubborness is evident 
 in their quoting the same words to Pilate, to 
 induce him to grant them a guard to watch the 
 sepulchre. " That deceiver said, while he was 
 yet alive," said they, ** after three days I will 
 rise again." It was necessary he should rise to 
 assure them he was no deceiver, but the Way, 
 the Truth, and the Life. It was what no man 
 had ever promised to do ; what no man had ever 
 done, or pretended to do ; and, therefore, was 
 what well became Him, who did such deeds, as 
 even his enemies had confessed " no man could 
 do, unless God wei'e with him !" 
 
 We have alluded to a point on which we notice 
 more particularly, 
 
 4. 2'he resurrection was necessary to the 
 Saviours triumph over " death, and him that 
 had the power of death, that is, the devil." 
 
 The crucifixion had ruined Christianity, but 
 for the resurrection that explained and proved it. 
 The Jew and the Pagan had been as right as 
 we are ; the former more so. The Jew had justly 
 put to death the man that " made himself the 
 Son of God the Pagan had justly said, as of 
 old, "These Christians adore a man who was 
 
70 
 
 put to death in Judea." Had Jesus remained in 
 the grave longer than he had promised, his holy 
 name had been at least coupled with error and 
 mutability ; had he not risen at all, the imputa- 
 tion of imposture had been one solution of the 
 difficulty, or his persevering adherents must have 
 believed that the powers of heaven were unequal 
 in the contest with the powers of hell — that Satan 
 had triumphed over the Rock of ages. But, on 
 the contrary, when at his own appointed time he 
 arose, he strictly fulfilled the Messiah's high en- 
 gagements. He discovered why he submitted to 
 die — why he sought to meet, and grapple with 
 death — that he might vanquish the monster in 
 his own cave ; that he might rescue the precious 
 spoils, an universe of souls, " from him that had 
 the power of death ;" and that the Seed of the 
 woman might inflict the long-aimed, long-pro- 
 mised bruise upon the serpent's head, and hell, 
 with all her trembling principalities and powers, 
 might never recover His immortal blow, who 
 " ascended up on high, led captivity captive, and 
 received gifts for men, yea, for the rebellious 
 also, that the Lord God might dwell among 
 them." " Then was brought to pass the saying 
 that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. 
 
71 
 
 O death, where is thy sting ? O grave, where is 
 thy victory ? The sting of death is sin ; and the 
 strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to 
 God, who giveth us the victory, through our 
 Lord Jesus Christ." Before the resurrection, 
 man saw nothing before hira but death and dark- 
 ness ; after it, he had a well-founded hope of 
 eternal life. Whence we observe, 
 
 5. The resurrection was necessary to sanc- 
 tion the doctrine of a future existence. 
 
 All the lessons of our blessed Lord were 
 practically taught; he taught the lesson of the 
 resurrection from the dead in the same manner. 
 He rose to teach the doctrine of eternity, to tell 
 the story of another life, to lead the way through 
 the valley of death, into the land of immortal 
 spirits. 
 
 The views of the Jewish people generally, and 
 doubtless of the apostles also, upon this impor- 
 tant doctrine, were dark, vague, and unsatisfac- 
 tory ; not to mention the considerable sect of the 
 Sadducees, who believed in no resurrection, 
 neither angel or spirit: among the Gentiles, also, 
 were similar dogmatists. The metempsychosis 
 of Pythagoras, and the doctrines of Epicurus, had 
 numberless disciples among the Greeks, and 
 
72 
 
 among the Romans, who had then overran the 
 world. Touching the soul's chief attribute and dig- 
 nity, her essential immortality, " darkness covered 
 the earth, and gross darkness the minds of the 
 people." But " life and immortality were brought 
 to light" by the resurrection and revelations of 
 Jesus, in a manner hitherto unparalleled in the 
 history of man. It need hardly be observed, 
 that since all the sanctions of religion and mora- 
 lity are founded upon their reference to another 
 state of existence, "if in this life only we have 
 hope," says the apostle, " we are of all men most 
 miserable." Surely, then, the proof and enforce- 
 ment of the doctrine of this future life is of the 
 first importance to every other doctrine of reli- 
 gion ; whence then the doctrine Christ had so 
 unequivocally asserted in his life, he proved, 
 beyond all doubt or controversy, after his death : 
 he rose not only as " the first-fruits of them that 
 slept," but also as the earnest of all them, in 
 whom dwells "the Spirit of Him that raised up 
 Jesus from the dead," who " shall also quicken 
 their mortal bodies by his Spirit, that dwelleth in 
 them." Whose peculiar office leads us to notice, 
 Lastly. The necessity of the resurrection to 
 the succeeding mission of the Holy Ghost. 
 
73 
 
 *' It is expedient for you that I go away," said 
 our Lord to his disciples; "for if I go not away, 
 the Comforter will not come unto you ; but if I 
 depart, I will send him unto you." He could 
 not have sent them the Holy Spirit from the 
 grave ; he must send him from the heaven, — 
 his dwelling-place, — and for the purpose, ascend 
 thither himself. He promised, and he must 
 perform; but ten days after his ascension into 
 glory, he sent his Holy Spirit down, to be present 
 " with us alway, even unto the end of the world. ' 
 Be it further and especially remembered, tliat 
 man depends primarily, constantly, and exclu- 
 sively upon the grace of this Holy Spirit to 
 bring, and guide, and keep him in the way 
 of life ; if, therefore, the resurrection were neces- 
 sary to the acquisition of this blessed Spirit, the 
 doctrine is necessary to salvation, — necessary, as 
 we observed upon our first point, to the whole 
 scheme of Christianity. By the resurrection 
 only, " the stone which the builders rejected 
 became the head-stone of the corner ;" without 
 it we should preach a faith in the dead, incite 
 you to worship a mortal and a creature : for that 
 which could be ended, was soniewhen begun, 
 and therefore somewhen created. But on the 
 
 E 
 
74 
 
 conuary, when we praise a risen Saviour, adore 
 a living God, and celebrate an ascended Re- 
 deemer, we have a worship without idolatry, a 
 creed without superstition, a love without ab- 
 surdity, " a hope that maketh not ashamed." 
 
 We trust, then, you are now prepared to 
 acknowledge what a sublime association of ideas 
 a fit and reflective observance of the christian 
 sabbath is calculated to excite in the believer's 
 mind. To-day, as we have seen, the offered 
 sacrifice was accepted for us, and the atonement 
 fully consummated ; to-day, the melancholy 
 delusion of the bewildered apostles of our church 
 was wholly dissipated, their hearts gladdened, 
 and their eyes opened ; to-day, the triumph of 
 unbelievers was cut short, and the joy of the 
 unholy turned into mourning ; to-day, the 
 powers of the evil one received the long- pre- 
 dicted, and subduing blow ; to-day, the gloomy 
 darkness of the future was scattered by the rising 
 of the Sun of Righteousness upon the tomb; 
 and to-day, the Holy Ghost came down from 
 heaven, because the Son of God " ascended up 
 to where he was before," and sent him for us 
 men, and for our salvation." 
 
 Is there any other event throughout the 
 
75 
 
 sacred life of the Redeemer involving such 
 momentous consequences as this? Can there 
 be any other day more worthy and more suited 
 to the solemnities of a sabbath? Then, was 
 the nativity a better day ? No ; though the first 
 Christmas holiday was kept by the heathen 
 Magi, a sabbath of gifts and worship. Was 
 the crucifixion a better day ? No; though the 
 first Good Friday was kept by the conscious 
 sun, a sabbath of rest from shining. Was the 
 ascension a better day ? No ; for then the Lord 
 himself kept sabbath with his holy angels in 
 the heaven of heavens. But the resurrection 
 brought Jesus to the earth again, to make ;i 
 sabbath for man, giving him a pledge and type 
 of another life ; and as the old sabbath was a 
 sign of deliverance from bondage, so the new 
 and better day became the sign of a greater de- 
 liverance, which " shall be to us, and to all that 
 love his appearing" on the resurrection morning 
 of the latter day. Then welcome, blessed sabbath 
 of our Lord ; welcome every glad return of the 
 sweet holiday ! Be thou ever welcome to all thy 
 Lord's happy people, even as the Lord himself, 
 that made thee, was welcome home again to his 
 holy angels ! 
 
 E 2 
 
76 
 
 In conclusion, what practical use can we 
 make of our reflections? Has it done one of 
 us any good ? Has it provoked a single pious 
 vow; or given birth to one devout wish, ejacu- 
 lated in the heart's prayer to God, for more 
 grace to solemnize this blessed day more pro- 
 fitably to ourselves, more conformably with its 
 sacred associations, more exclusively to the glory 
 of God ? If it has had this effect, we may feel 
 with Peter, " It is good to be here;" our souls 
 have realized, in this day's spiritual associations, 
 more than the transfiguration on the Mount — 
 the return of Jesus into Deity, without the 
 relapse again into manhood ; the proofs and 
 pledges of redemption by Jesus of Nazareth, 
 without fear of the perplexity and doubt of 
 another Calvary. Calvary itself is full of glory, 
 and lovely to the soul which there sees her 
 salvation. " It is good to be here," for " God is 
 here," though many of us, like Jacob in his 
 sleep, " knew it not." God is here : for he has 
 promised, and " is not man that he should lie, or 
 the son of man that he should repent." God is 
 here : " How dreadful is this place," felt the 
 patriarch ; " this is none other but the house of 
 God, and this is the gate of heaven!" Why, 
 
77 
 
 then, dreadful Because, my brethren, from 
 the very gate of heaven there is a road to hell. 
 Some are bidden to " enter," others " to 
 depart ;" many are called, but few are chosen ; 
 all are welcomed, but how few comply with the 
 terms ! 
 
 But we have a lesson or two suggested to us 
 by our reflections. 
 
 1. As this days sabbath is a memorial of 
 such great and important events, what a sign of 
 hardness of heart and stubbornness of unbelief 
 they exhibit, who pass over the day in care- 
 lessness and neglect of its duties ! Has not 
 God done enough on this day to commend its 
 solemnity to your souls ? " O yes !" you may be 
 ready to answer, " we believe it all ! " My 
 brethren, you were not charged with unbelief 
 in theory; it is to the practical Sadducee, to the 
 life and walk infidel, the Holy Ghost appeals, 
 when he asks you, " Why call ye me Lord, 
 Lord ! and do not the things which 1 say ? " 
 Oh, that such lip-worshippers would remember, 
 that the day cometh when they shall again 
 say, " Lord, Lord, open to us ! and say it in 
 vain. 
 
 It is hard to say which is the greater foe to 
 
78 
 
 Jesus ; he who denies, and therefore cries — 
 " Away with him!" or he who beheves, yet 
 whose double-minded, hypocritical, " Hail, 
 Master!" betray him to the scorn and assaults of 
 the unbelieving. The latter, perhaps, are the 
 more dangerous and destructive in the end. 
 The false professor, Judas, did more injury, 
 and, therefore, was a greater enemy to the 
 Saviour, than all the priests, and elders, and 
 people. The traitor who bares the bosom is more 
 guilty than the stranger who strikes the blow. 
 The worldly Christian, — to use such a contra- 
 diction of terms, but there is many such a moral 
 paradox, — the God and Mammon worshipper, 
 knows not what cruel injury he does to the 
 truth, what offence to weak brethren, what 
 stumbling in the way of returning sinners, 
 what occasion to the enemies of God to blas- 
 pheme; and never is indecision of character, 
 or inconsistency of life and conversation, so 
 prominent and apparent to the world as on the 
 Lord's-day. The world remarks these things 
 more than christian professors imagine, because 
 upon these points they can enlarge and murmur, 
 though the uprightness of the faithful be passed 
 over in, at least, the respect of silence. For 
 
79 
 
 the sake of our brethren, therefore, as for our 
 own sakes also, let us watchfully and prayerfully 
 endeavour " to give no offence in any thing, 
 that the ministry be not blamed," that your 
 profession be not questioned, or your falling 
 become the stumbling-block in a neighbour's 
 way. 
 
 But further, what shall be said of those who 
 neglect the sabbath ordinance altogether ? The 
 resurrection sabbath is no charm or hope to 
 them. The risen Saviour is to them a risen 
 judge; and the blood that might have been the 
 blood of ransom, rises indeed, but, like tlie 
 blood of the first victim, crieth up to Heaven 
 against them. They have crucified the Lord 
 afresh — they have morally invoked " his blood 
 upon them and on their children," and they 
 have denied the Lord that bought them. What 
 then? Perchance God hath said, for awhile 
 " Ephraira is joined to his idols, let him alone ; ' 
 and hath declared, " My Spirit shall not always 
 strive with man." But a little while, poor 
 workers of iniquity ! life is short, is always 
 passing away, its tenure most frail and uncertain. 
 There is nothing sure from the beginning except 
 its end; life has no certainty except its death: 
 
80 
 
 we may reckon on no more. A little while, then, 
 and a Lord's-day cometh that ye must keep — the 
 day for which all other days were made ; — the 
 day that will be the death and last of days ; — the 
 day whose morning and whose evening eternity 
 shall not sever; — the day whose everlasting 
 light shall shine upon the redeemed, and whose 
 everlasting dark shall fall upon the damned ; — the 
 day of final and eternal destinies, " the great 
 and terrible day of the Lord," when he cometh 
 in the clouds of heaven ! Who can write, or 
 speak, or hear, or think of these awful truths, 
 and not tremble that he has a soul,- — a soul whose 
 resurrection on that day must begin its own endless 
 sabbath in heaven, or its endless torment in 
 hell; a soul that, in a certain sense, is now in 
 his own hands, but then will be no longer his 
 own ; a soul whose every motion certifies her 
 essential immortality; a soul which he alone 
 knows the value of, who paid the price ; yet a 
 soul which many a fallen spirit will weep and 
 bewail that it was ever its possession. Every 
 soul of man forms a spiritual possession. We 
 are all morally possessed of a good or evil spirit. 
 In our origin with an unclean spirit, and in our 
 progress without " the creation of a clean heart. 
 
81 
 
 and the renewal of a right spirit," we shall be in 
 our end possessed of a fallen spirit, and that 
 eternally. Now, then, while there is time, and 
 while there is time there is hope, — now, for there 
 is no promise of the great I Am, except upon 
 the present, though that present in relation to 
 both grace for the future, and pardon for the 
 past, — now, " let us seek the Lord while he may 
 be found, and call upon him while he is near," 
 nor ever rest till this moral evil, this strong one 
 that possesses our nature, be overcome by " the 
 stronger than he that cometh;" and instead 
 of Satan in the old Adam, the second Adam 
 in Christ, be formed in us, " the hope of 
 glory." 
 
 Lastly. Our reflections on our Lord's resur- 
 rection furnish matter of comfort to the believer 
 in Christ. Trials and afflictive dispensations he 
 knows but work together for good, because his 
 Saviour endured them before him. He learns 
 " in patience to possess his soul," no matter how 
 dark and mysterious the visitation : the apostles 
 thought all was over in their Master's death, but 
 the day of resurrection was but three days off, 
 and the believer's consolation may be likewise 
 drawing nigh. It was but for " a little while,'' 
 e3 
 
82 
 
 the Saviour said, " ye shall not see me ;" the 
 believer waits another " little while," and he 
 shall see him, because his Lord goes to the 
 Father. He is comforted by the promise of the 
 Comforter; and though it be sometimes, in 
 a scornful world like this, his lot to fall in 
 with the crucifiers of his Lord, and like Simon 
 of Cyrene, " him they compel to bear his 
 cross," yet he finds his Saviour beside him ; and 
 amid all the scoffs of infidelity, and the taunts 
 of carnal enmity, he beholds, with the uplifted 
 eye of faith, " the heavens opened, and the Son 
 of Man standing on the right hand of God ;" 
 " yea, though he walk through the valley of 
 the shadow of death, he will fear no evil," 
 for he finds the footsteps of his Jesus in the 
 grave, and follows him beyond to glory ! The 
 world may lay his body in the tomb; the world may 
 come and see the place where the believer lay ; 
 but the Angel of the Covenant has an answer for 
 them there, like that which met the mourners 
 at the sepulchre — " He is not here ; he is risen ! " 
 God grant to each of us an equal epitaph, for 
 his sake who hath gone before us ! We know 
 not how soon we may want it. One who was 
 las well esteemed as he was well-known among 
 
83 
 
 you, kept his last sabbath in this earthly taber- 
 nacle; he has kept to-day's sabbath in that " other 
 house not made with hands, eternal in the 
 heavens." Oh, let each one pray, " May 1 die 
 the death of the righteous, and my last end be 
 like his!" 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 THE SABBATH CONSIDERED AS A DAY OF REST. 
 
 Nehemiah XIII. 17, 18. 
 
 " Tlmi I contended with the nobles of Judah, and said unto 
 them, WJiat evil thing is this that ye do, and profane the 
 sahhath-day 1 Did not your fathers thus, and did not 
 our God bring all this evil upon us, and upon this city ? 
 yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the 
 sabbath. " 
 
 Among the various evils that called for the at- 
 tention and redress of the great Jewish reformers, 
 Nehemiah had to inveigh bitterly against the 
 public abuse of the sabbath. On examination of 
 the context, we find the causes of this abuse to 
 be traced to the connivance of the rulers of the 
 people, in regard of matters of merchandize 
 being permitted sale on this holy day. " In 
 those days saw I in Judah some treading wine- 
 presses on the sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, 
 and lading asses ; as also, wine, grapes, and figs, 
 
85 
 
 and all manner of burdens, which they brought 
 into Jerusalem on the sabbath-day ; and I testi- 
 fied against them in the day wherein they sold 
 victuals." If we changed the names of some of 
 the articles, have we not great cause to testify 
 against the too general spread of the same evil 
 among ourselves? There is great laxity of prac- 
 tice on this head, part of which has unhappily 
 received the sanction of legal permission, and of 
 public patronage ; we allude to the sale of some 
 articles, as of some kinds of fish, which, because 
 of their rapid perishableness, have obtained a kind 
 of prescriptive right of sale on the sabbath. If 
 there were any doubt of the moral unlawfulness 
 of these sales on the sabbath, on the score of the 
 general rule of necessary acts, (though that pro- 
 vision which only ministers to luxury can never 
 be proved to be necessary food,) if, I say, 
 there be two opinions on the question, consi- 
 dered generally, the matter is set at rest by the 
 next verse preceding our text, — " There dwelt 
 men of Tyre also therein, who brought fish, 
 and all manner of ware, and sold on the sabbath 
 unto the children of Judah, and in Jerusalem ;" 
 then, says Nehemiah, in the words of our text, 
 *' I contended with the nobles of Judah, and 
 
86 
 
 said unto them, What evil thing is this that ye do, 
 and profane the sabbath-day ?" These acts were, 
 at that time, considered to be violations of the 
 moral law of the sabbath ; that law is unaltered, 
 is the same now as it was then ; such acts are 
 therefore now an evident violation of the same 
 institution. True, there were among the Jews 
 certain points of mere ceremonial violation of the 
 sabbath, which are not now to be considered 
 violations ; but unnecessary secular employment 
 on the holy day, is not a matter of ceremonial, 
 but of moral wrong. If the nobles alluded to 
 in our text, and the wealthy, had not connived at 
 the evil by patronizing the market of these 
 luxuries, the poor salesmen had not been tempted 
 to profane the sabbath. The same argument 
 belongs to ourselves. Alas ! was it long ago 
 that a British Nehemiah appealed to our rulers 
 and nobles, on precisely the same national 
 grievance and iniquity ; and was the appeal met 
 with that serious attention and respect which 
 became the senate of a christian land ? 
 
 Great men are the fuglemen of a community ; 
 man is an imitative being, and his bias is, from 
 childhood to old age, to mimic his superiors, 
 whether of age or station. The eminently good 
 
87 
 
 man, or the conspicuously bad, are both sure of 
 a multitude of copiers, and hence the greater sin 
 measured by its greater mischief, of an evil 
 example in the titled and the opulent members 
 of society. Doubtless the Providence that set 
 any man upon a hill, will call into judgment 
 the effect of his influence upon his brethren in 
 the valley. No man commits the sin of an ill 
 example unconsciously, for man is a social being, 
 influencing, and being influenced, by the society 
 into which he falls ; and he knows this influence, 
 for man is a vain being, and proudly alive to the 
 sense of his every real or imagined attribute. 
 Conscious shame may wear the mask of modesty, 
 in declaring her ignorance of the extent of her evil 
 influence ; but this ignorance, if it were real, is 
 wilfully culpable ; if assumed, is still more repre- 
 hensible. The gradations of this influence pass 
 through all the classes of society, from the 
 crowned father of his people, to the peasant 
 father of his fireside. In the present day, by 
 reason of the numerous intersections of power 
 which commerce and property have made in the 
 community, the middling classes form an im- 
 mense Sanhedrim and college of moral rulers 
 of the people, whose influence is immediate and 
 
88 
 
 commanding; every master tradesman is a sort 
 of feudal lord, to whom the little retinue of his 
 artisans, more or less, pay the unconscious tribute 
 of following his influence and copying his ex- 
 ample. It is, therefore, of such infinite importance 
 to the poor journeyman, that the master be a 
 servant of God ; it is, therefore, that masters 
 have no right to such indulgences which endan- 
 ger in their imitation the morals of their depen- 
 dants. Particularly in all public efforts to 
 promote the cause of religion, acts of public 
 inconsistency on the part of the influential orders 
 of society should be especially avoided. If, for 
 instance, a laudable exertion has been made by 
 the magistracy, seconded, as they ever should 
 be, by the clergy and the religious profession 
 generally, to secure the better observance of the 
 sabbath-day, — how, I would ask, can the gentry 
 of a neighbourhood expect the labouring classes 
 to refrain from violating the Lord's-day in taverns 
 and amusement, when they see their superiors 
 setting them the example in news-rooms and 
 convivial visitings? The landlord murmurs to 
 be obliged to close his inn when the door of the 
 library, or the promenade, is at the same time 
 open. Such public countenance and patronage 
 
89 
 
 of sabbath-breaking must be the effect of inad- 
 vertency, or of wilful preference to a newspaper 
 over the book of Common Prayer. If it be the 
 former case, it is the duty of christian ministers 
 faithfully to point out the perilous and unhappy 
 error ; if it be the latter, it is still their duty to 
 lift up their voices against sin in any shape, and 
 under any circumstances, for nothing can hide or 
 diminish aught of its exceeding sinfulness ; the 
 practice of very angels could not hold it unre- 
 bukable or unpunished. Wickedness is not to 
 rest uncensured because it sits upon high places ; 
 no matter that we incur the sneer of the scornful, 
 or the malediction of the profane, or the mur- 
 mur of the half-hearted professor. If vice were 
 to pass untaxed, and without reproof, lest men 
 should be offended, the stumbling-block of the 
 cross had never been " set for the fall and rising 
 again of many in the spiritual Israel, and for a 
 sign which shall be spoken against." It is a 
 melancholy proof of the unchanged character of 
 the world, that the truth is still an offence, still 
 an unpalatable presentment, still an unwelcome 
 stranger ; but through good report or evil report, 
 it must prevail, if only on the principle of endu- 
 rance ; for it will live when all its enemies are dead. 
 
90 
 
 The duty of the influential part of the pubHc 
 in promoting the observance of the Lord's-day, 
 will probably appear more plainly evident in 
 our following reflections. Previously, however, 
 let us briefly glance at a question which has 
 been recently the subject of considerable agi- 
 tation, viz., the right of the legislature to 
 enforce, as much as human law can do, an 
 external decency in the observance of the sab- 
 bath-day. This may be briefly stated upon 
 two principles. 
 
 1. It is a christian land; her senate, 
 therefore, has a right to defend from public 
 violation a christian institution, such insti- 
 tutions being part and parcel of the national 
 polity, the guardianship of which is the peculiar 
 province of the legislature. It is no less the 
 law of England, than the law of Heaven, that 
 six days' labour should be followed by a seventh 
 day's rest, and as we shall presently see, this is 
 none other than a law of the necessities of 
 nature also. Then the senate, in enforcing that 
 external observance of the sabbath which con- 
 sists in the exemption of all classes from labour, 
 does not exceed its prerogative, but consults the 
 common good, not only in a constitutional, but 
 
91 
 
 also in a moral, and as we shall presently see, in 
 a physical, point of view. 
 
 2. The senate has a right to make such pro- 
 vision, that the worship of our common God be 
 not attended with injury and loss to the devout 
 members of the community. In other words, 
 the senate is right in removing from vice all the 
 public sanction and patronage within the scope 
 of the just liberty of the subject. This liberty 
 becomes licentiousness one single step beyond 
 the law of God; this law has enjoined the 
 observance of the sabbath ; its public violation, 
 therefore, becomes a proper subject of public 
 condemnation. The public voice is the law of 
 the land ; justly then, the law inflicts a penalty 
 upon the open violation of the national sabbath. 
 If it were not so, what grievous injury would 
 befal the conscientious observer of the day of rest, 
 if his ungodly neighbours were thus suffered to 
 monopolize from the religious one day in 
 every seven for the unopposed sale of their 
 merchandize! 
 
 There is, notwithstanding the statutes against 
 it, and the exertions of the magistracy, too much 
 of this evil in every neighbourhood in the realm ; 
 and it is not too much to affirm, that the sabbath- 
 
92 
 
 selling tradesman takes an unfair advantage of 
 his more conscientious neighbour. Then a 
 christian senate cannot too much discountenance 
 public vice, nor afford too many facilities to the 
 progress of public morality ; neither can any 
 nation consult its own political health and sta- 
 bility, so much as by promoting its public 
 obedience, not so much to its own laws imme- 
 diately, as to the laws of God. " Righteousness 
 exalteth a nation," said the wisest legislator and 
 philosopher of antiquity, " but sin is a reproach 
 to any people." Who can quote me a single 
 law of God, the general obedience of which 
 would not directly consult the common good, 
 and that, too, without any injury to the individual, 
 which is not the case in all public benefactions ? 
 But in this, " happy are the people in such a 
 case, yea, happy are the people whose God is the 
 Lord. Godliness is profitable unto all things, 
 having promise of the life that now is, and of 
 that which is to come." Jehovah's laws were 
 founded upon that intimate acquaintance with the 
 universal wants and peculiarities of his creatures, 
 which no human legislator, however highly 
 gifted, could ever emulate or pretend ; all the 
 laws of nature suggest the wisdom and benevo- 
 
93 
 
 lence of the Deity ; all the laws of Providence, 
 to those who by obedience best know them, 
 speak the same truth ; all the laws of grace, in 
 all their blessed influences upon their faithful 
 subjects' hearts ; all that we see, or know, or 
 feel, or believe, of the Supreme Being, unani- 
 mously confirm the character that " God is love," 
 " yea, he is altogether lovely." 
 
 Let us attempt an illustration of this general 
 feature of wisdom and benevolence towards man, 
 in the commandments of God, which suggests 
 itself in the subject of this evening's inquiry, i. e. 
 The sabbath considered as a day of rest. We 
 propose to exhibit to your notice, 
 
 I. Man's necessity for a day of rest, touching 
 his animal economy. 
 
 II. The extent of the injunction contained in 
 the law of rest. 
 
 III. Man's necessity for that injunction, 
 touching his moral economy. 
 
 And may that Holy Spirit, that rested on his 
 own sabbath in heaven, graciously condescend 
 to rest upon us here, while in humble depend- 
 ence on his promised aid, we wrestle with the 
 Angel of the Covenant for the blessing of 
 truth ! 
 
94 
 
 I. Mans necessity for a day of rest, toucli- 
 ing his animal economy. On tliis head, I need 
 do no more than quote the evidence of an 
 eminent physician, recently addressed to a par- 
 Hamentary committee on the subject. Remember, 
 my brethren, this is not the testimony of a priest, 
 which many of us are too apt to suspect as 
 interested, (as if all, or any of us, were not as 
 much interested in matters belonging to death 
 and judgment, heaven and hell, as any priest in 
 Christendom.) If there be any such incon- 
 siderate persons here, I would call their serious 
 attention to the enlightened evidence of a man 
 of science. In reference to the sabbath, he 
 observes, "As a day of rest, I view it as a day 
 of compensation for the inadequate restorative 
 power of the body, under continued labour and 
 excitement. A physician always has respect 
 to the preservation of the restorative power, 
 because if once this be lost, his healing office 
 is at an end. If I show you, from the physiolo- 
 gical view of the question, that there are pro- 
 visions in the laws of nature which correspond 
 with the Divine commandment, you will see 
 from the analogy that ' the sabbath was made 
 for man,' as a necessary appointment. A 
 
95 
 
 physician is anxious to preserve the balance of 
 circulation, as necessary to the restorative power 
 of the body. The ordinary exertions of man 
 run dovi'n the circulation every day of his life ; 
 and the first general law of nature by which 
 God (who is not only the giver, but also the pre- 
 server and sustainer of life,) prevents man from 
 destroying himself, is the alternating of day 
 with night, that repose may succeed action. 
 But although the night apparently equalizes the 
 circulation well, yet it does not - sufficiently 
 restore its balance for the attainment of a long 
 life. Hence, one day in seven, by the bounty 
 of Providence, is thrown in as a day of compen- 
 sation, to perfect by its repose the animal 
 system. You may easily determine this question 
 as a matter of fact, by trying it on beasts of 
 burden. Take that fine animal, the horse, and 
 work him to the full extent of his powers every 
 day of the week, or give him rest one day in 
 seven, and you will soon perceive, by the supe- 
 rior vigour with which he performs his functions 
 on the other six days, that this rest is necessary 
 to his well-being." The Doctor's experiment was 
 tried in that French revolution, when, among 
 other evidences of that wisdom of man which is 
 
96 
 
 " foolishness in the sight of God," the national 
 sabbath was formally abolished, and the great con- 
 sequent mortality among the cattle admonished 
 that profligate period, that the servant and the 
 cattle gave the argument of martyrdom in favour 
 of the seventh day's rest. " But," continues 
 the Doctor, " man, possessing a superior nature, 
 is borne along by the very vigour of his mind, 
 so that the injury of continued diurnal exertion 
 and excitement on his animal system, is not so 
 immediately apparent as it is in the brute, but, 
 in the long run, (the sabbath-breaker) breaks 
 down suddenly ; it abridges the length of his 
 life, and the vigour of his old age, which (as to 
 mere animal power) ought to be the object of 
 his preservation." After other admirable re- 
 marks, our author concludes, " that researches 
 in physiology, by the analogy of the working of 
 providence in nature, will establish the truth of 
 revelation, and, consequently, show that the 
 Divine commandment is to be considered an 
 appointment necessary to man." 
 
 We need no further comment upon the pas- 
 sage we have quoted, than merely to remind you, 
 my brethren, that to " remember the sabbath- 
 day, to keep it holy," is not the " foolishness 
 
97 
 
 of preaching," as it may be deemed, but the 
 true " wisdom of the wise." We proceed, after 
 the proof of the necessity of rest, to inquire, 
 
 II. Into the extent of the injunction con- 
 tained in the law that commands this rest." 
 We find this extent equal to the above proved 
 necessity, and doubtless founded upon the fact. 
 Does the master alone require the day of com- 
 pensation for the waste of animal vigour? 
 surely his labourers and his cattle require it 
 more. Thus then, the Providence, whose 
 tender mercy is over all his works, includes, in 
 the equal law with the master, his " son and 
 daughter, man and maid-servant, stranger and 
 cattle," and all to be allowed " no manner of 
 work." Where is here room for equivocation, 
 or saving clause? The perfection of a statute 
 consists in its so comprehensive letter, that no 
 sleight, quibble or evasion can violate with im- 
 punity the spirit of its injunction. Where is 
 statute or subtle enactment so brief, so plain, 
 and yet so inevitable, as this ? But we may pro- 
 fitably enlarge upon its details. The extent of 
 the injunction touches both the time, and 
 subjects of observance. Of the time, the law 
 says, " The seventh day is the sabbath of the 
 
98 
 
 Lord thy God, in it," i. c. in this day, " thou 
 shalt do no manner of work." By a day, we 
 understand that portion of time which, in 
 Genesis, is defined to be the morning and 
 evening, which we are wont to constitute of 
 twenty-four hours' duration. The Jews under- 
 stood the sabbath-day from Friday evening 
 to Saturday evening ; but still the same amount 
 of time was devoted, a day of twenty-four hours. 
 During this period, any manner of work is 
 strictly lorbidden, except those cases of neces- 
 sity or charity which will be hereafter defined. 
 
 Again, of the subjects of observance of the 
 sabbath, the law says, first to the individual, 
 " Thou shalt do no manner of work;" but if 
 that individual be a father, he may think to 
 keep the law himself, by deputing his children 
 to work for him. To prevent this, then, though 
 the subterfuge ought to be disarmed in the 
 fact that the commandment is directed to every 
 individual, touching every manner of work, 
 whether for himself or others, yet God con- 
 descends to anticipate this evasion, and to add, 
 " nor thy son, nor thy daughter :" the parental 
 authority is inferior to that of God. Cold- 
 hearted accomplice in thy children's transgres- 
 
99 
 
 sion, thou shalt bear their penalty ! He who 
 " visits the sins of the fathers upon the children," 
 will also reverse the judgment, and visit the sins 
 of the children upon the fathers, but in a far 
 more fearful, perchance in an eternal visitation. 
 But some one will say, " If I employ not my 
 children, surely the servants whom I pay for 
 their labour may use their own conscience 
 whether they will work for me on this day." 
 No ; the law adds, " nor thy man-servant, nor thy 
 maid-servant," You have no right either to 
 command per force, or accept their services 
 voluntarily ; the former makes you an aider and 
 abettor, the latter a receiver of the stolen 
 sabbath. It is the Lord's day; and shouldst 
 thou or thy servant rob him of his holy sabbath, 
 ye are confederates in sacrilege, and both under 
 guilt of the moral felony. But where will the 
 human heart, " so deceitful above all things, 
 and desperately wicked," stop ? There is 
 another step where the subtlety of the devil 
 leads a man to say, " Well, if I may not employ 
 my children, or my servants, who have souls 
 to be saved, surely I may use my brute cattle, 
 who do not know how to keep a sabbath." 
 No, my brethren; " the merciful man spareth 
 f2 
 
100 
 
 the life of his beast;" rest is as necessary, nay, 
 more so, to the poor beasts that perish, than to 
 you ; God's law has ordained them their share, 
 dare ye, then, to break the commandment, 
 by robbing his dumb creatures? Once more, 
 effectually to cut short all and every evasion, 
 the man may say, " Well, I leave all my family, 
 self, children, servants, and cattle, to keep holy 
 the sabbath, but 1 cannot control yon stranger 
 that does not belong to me; if he violate the 
 sabbath, it is no matter of mine." But it is thy 
 matter ; God has made it so, " if the stranger 
 be within thy gates." We have no right to 
 tolerate impiety of any kind in our own house- 
 hold; the blessing of God is withdrawn from 
 the domestic camp, until the Achan who is in it 
 be put out. The parent is bound to save him- 
 self and his children from the temptation of 
 a sabbath-breaker's presence and example. 
 
 Nehemiah, in the verse before our text, com- 
 plains of the Jews' employment of the services 
 of men of Tyre on the sabbath-day. It is 
 somewhat remarkable that Jewish traders, in 
 various towns of this kingdom, are commonly in 
 the habit of having a christian partner in their 
 business, — "a stranger in their gates," — to violate 
 
101 
 
 their sabbath by a similar evasion. We may 
 presume this office is reciprocated by the Jew on 
 our Sunday, and thus both parties commit the 
 sin by implication, for both allow a stranger to 
 their respective creeds to violate each the other's 
 sabbath-day. Alas, for such grievous obliquity 
 of mind, and disingenuousness of heart ! Alas, 
 for *' the deceivableness of unrighteousness in 
 them that perish ! " Alas, for the " cunning 
 craftiness of men, whereby they lie in wait to 
 deceive ; " but, alas, the more for their own 
 delusion, " in whom the God of this world hath 
 blinded the minds of them who believe not, lest 
 the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who 
 is the image of God, should shine unto them!" 
 We have to shew, 
 
 III. Mans necessity of this day of rest, 
 touching his moral economy. This may be 
 observed under various points of view. 
 
 1, A day of rest from secular labour is neces- 
 sary to give the mind that composure which 
 alone can fit it for spiritual reflection. Though 
 the good man trusts to be enabled, in the " dili- 
 gence of business," to be " fervent in spirit," in 
 both cases " serving the Lord," yet he feels and 
 knows that in this world's business he wants 
 
102 
 
 seasons of more uninterrupted and entire devo- 
 tion of spirit to his heavenly Master; his mind is 
 divided ; his heart too much occupied with the 
 necessary duties of his calling, to be satisfied 
 with only such a service of God. True, his 
 Lord is welcome to these brief and broken sacri- 
 fices of his morning and evening exercises, but 
 he is anxious to bring a full day to his God, a 
 whole burnt-offering to the public altar ; he looks* 
 then, to the returning sabbath with delight, and 
 welcomes the sweet dawn of rest and devotion 
 with heart-felt, unaffected pleasure. He thanks 
 God for every beginning day that adds another 
 link to the chain of his existence ; but he is more 
 thankful for that day, which comes not so often 
 as he could wish ; for that day, which reminds 
 him of the last he looks for ; for that day, when 
 he has a purer and a longer conversation with 
 heaven ; for that day, when he enjoys a greater 
 communion with the people of God, and lifts up 
 with them the common psalm to heaven, in token 
 and anticipation of that new, yet everlasting song 
 of Moses and the Lamb, which he longs to sing 
 in heaven. 
 
 2. A day of rest is necessary to man's moral 
 duty in his social character. The blessed God', 
 
103 
 
 who made man a social and gregarious being, 
 requires at our hands social sacrifices. In this 
 view, the Christian seeks the assembly in the 
 sanctuary, to join his prayer with their prayers, 
 his thanks with their thanks, and his praises 
 with their praises. He feels it to be due to God 
 to make this public acknowledgment of spiritual 
 allegiance to him, as his soul-and-body Lord 
 and King; to shew among men that he is not 
 ashamed to confess the name of his God, or the 
 profession of his people. His language is, "I 
 will declare thy name unto my brethren ; in the 
 midst of the congregation will I praise thee." 
 But it is evident if there were no appointed day 
 when men should unanimously cease from their 
 ordinary and private avocations, and come toge- 
 ther into the place of assembly, that there could 
 be no social worship of God at all. One would 
 be scandalized at his devotion by the carnal 
 occupation and hindrance of another, and all 
 that blessed effect which God has been so often 
 pleased to work out of our social feelings, by 
 sanctifying the means employed to move and 
 quicken them, would be utterly lost; there 
 would never be one sinner trembling by the 
 fear of another, or the groans of conviction be 
 
104 
 
 .begotten of a neighbour's penitent sighs, or the 
 consolation of a broken and a contrite heart be 
 gladdened and enlightened at a similarly affected 
 brother's joy and peace in believing. Moreover, 
 society would not be blessed; for society, as 
 such, has not asked for it, has offered no sa- 
 crifice, uttered no prayer. Thus, christian 
 men could not join it; would be obliged to " come 
 out from among them, and be separate from 
 sinners ;" for, without a blessing, there would be 
 a curse in it, and why should they be destroyed 
 with the people of Baal? " The ways of Sion 
 do mourn," said the prophet, " because none 
 come to the solemn feasts." Piety languishes, 
 and moral prosperity soon abandons the land, 
 where the sabbath is publicly neglected, and the 
 sanctuary forsaken. " Did not your fathers thus ?'' 
 said Nehemiah, appealing as we might do to 
 the moral history of the nation, and " did not 
 our God bring ail this evil upon us, and upon 
 this city? yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel, 
 by profaning the sabbath." What success or 
 stability could senators expect who missed the 
 opportunity of bringing a blessing upon their 
 measures, by rejecting a bill in favour of the 
 Lord's-day ? 
 
105 
 
 Nehemiah the magistrate bore not the sword 
 in vain ; to those who wilfully do so, a God of 
 justice may turn its point upon their own bosoms, 
 or leave them, like Saul, to fall upon it them- 
 selves. 
 
 3. A day of rest is necessary to man's moral 
 duty, in his domestic character. 
 
 Beside the public duties of the sanctuary, there 
 is also a sabbath to be observed at home. This 
 is a day where family prayer and exposition of 
 Scripture may, and ought to be, enlarged ; it is 
 a day when abundant leisure is afforded the 
 father to instruct his children, and the master his 
 servants ; and in order to this, as little labour as 
 possible in the necessary arrangements of their 
 household, christian masters should expect from 
 their servants, " knowing that their Master also 
 is in heaven." Thus, then, the family sabbath 
 should be kept holy at home, that the Lord of 
 the sabbath may confer upon that house the 
 family blessing. 
 
 Once more, a day of rest is necessary to the 
 very existence of religion generally. 
 
 Of every kind of monument which is set up to 
 commemorate particular events, that monument 
 which consists in a day of celebration is the most 
 f3 
 
106 
 
 likely to endure ; and the more frequent the cele- 
 bration recurs, the still more likely its conti- 
 nuance. Thus, then, the remembrance both of 
 creation and redemption has been kept alive in the 
 world by the weekly recurrence of the sabbath 
 memorial. Without it, in a careless and inimical 
 world like this, piety had long ago breathed her 
 last, and with the public incense in the temple, 
 private sacrifice had indubitably ceased at home. 
 Had not the lamp of truth been weekly trimmed 
 and fed with the holy oil of the sanctuary, it had 
 long ago gone out, and left the world in darkness. 
 Nothing but a day of rest, an ordinance that 
 appeals to man's ease and convenience, a means 
 that consults his interest in both worlds, a judi- 
 cious harmonizing of pleasure and duty, of body 
 and soul, of time and eternity ; nothing but the 
 admirable and merciful provision of a day of rest, 
 reminding us in its supply of our physical neces- 
 sities, of those higher and more important moral 
 wants, which it is intended and calculated to 
 relieve; nothing but such an institution could, 
 humanly speaking, have kept truth on the earth, 
 and the knowledge of Jehovah a resident among 
 his fallen creatui'es. Wherever there is no 
 sabbath, there is no worship — no religion. Well 
 
107 
 
 aware of this principle were the infidels of revo- 
 lutionary France, when to crush religion in the 
 land, they struck the blow at the sabbath. And 
 what was the immediate result of the blasphemous 
 abolition ? The house of God is turned, as of 
 old, into a stable — a den of thieves. The word 
 of God, in awful mockery, perchance, of the 
 entry of the incarnate word into Jerusalem, is 
 paraded through the streets on an ass, and after, 
 burned by the multitude ; the name of God is 
 declared to be a lie, and his existence a fable ; 
 and, in fearful keeping with this fell apostasy, they 
 denied the immortality of their own souls. The 
 Redeemer's passion is justified as an execution ; 
 the Creator's altar usurped by a fitting image 
 of the national debauchery — a prostitute, entitled 
 the Goddess of Reason. The Holy Spirit is 
 declared to be an idle tale, and the Evil one a 
 bugbear for the superstitious. " And even as 
 they did not like to retain God in their know- 
 ledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, 
 to do those things which are not convenient;" 
 and the apostle well details their national calen- 
 dar, which was "filled with all unrighteousness, 
 fornication, wickedness, covetousness, malicious- 
 ness ; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, 
 
108 
 
 malignity ; whisperers, backbiters, haters of 
 God; despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of 
 evil things; disobedient to parents, without un- 
 derstanding, covenant-breakers, without natural 
 affection, implacable, unmerciful." The whole 
 nation was one moral suicide. Faith was slaugh- 
 tered on her own altars, Hope poisoned with the 
 food she fed upon, and lonely Charity went mad 
 with her despair : Truth alone remained in the 
 land in secret and proscribed, to testify against 
 it, when her hour was come ; and it came, but 
 not till when the sabbath returned, though the 
 holy day has never yet recovered from the sacri- 
 legious blow. 
 
 We thank God, the sabbath of England, much 
 as it is violated by individuals, suffers not the 
 legalized and public violations of our unhappy 
 neighbours ; but we have the ugly portrait of 
 the revolution to warn us what our nation would 
 be, were we to follow their example. Then let 
 us be seriously jealous of this blessed day ; let 
 us acknowledge, both in a moral and physical 
 point of view, what a day of thanksgiving, for 
 the day itself is the day of rest, the holy sabbath 
 of the Lord ; or rather, we should say, the holy 
 " sabbatli made for man," for He that " neither 
 
109 
 
 sleepeth nor slumbereth " wanted not the rest 
 himself. Jehovah is incapable of fatigue, and 
 therefore independent of rest ; it was his mercy 
 made it on behalf of man ; he blessed it to man, 
 when he sanctified it to himself. Let us gather, 
 then, in conclusion, a few brief topics of thank- 
 fulness for the blessed gift. 
 
 1. As a day of rest, it exhibits God's mercy, 
 that it was vouchsafed to us after the fall of 
 Adam. 
 
 Man for his rebellion was condemned to a life 
 of labour. " In the sweat of thy face," said God, 
 " shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the 
 ground." Every opening of the earth to deposit 
 the seed, or to bring forth its produce, reminds 
 man that out of it he was taken ; that dust we are, 
 that we feed and live upon dust, and unto dust 
 we shall return. In this perpetual memento of 
 his departure, what mercy to suspend the original 
 curse of labour, in a rest of every seventh day, 
 to give the poor condemned convict leisure for 
 repentance, and opportunity to prepare for the 
 final execution of his sentence. In the midst of 
 all this judgment, as in all judgments this side 
 eternity, God remembered mercy; the very curse 
 of labour has been commuted into a means of 
 
110 
 
 blessing, — we cannot dwell upon the thought, — 
 and the curse of death has become a passage to 
 eternal life. And every sabbath is the type and 
 earnest of the gracious promise. But, my bre- 
 thren, there are two eternities — an eternity of rest, 
 and an eternity of trouble. They who have not 
 enjoyed and solemnized the earthly rest, cannot 
 hope to have the heavenly. They who have 
 chosen, in their sabbath-breaking, the full unmi- 
 tigated curse of labour here, must have their 
 choice in the eternal curse of sorrow hereafter : 
 for there is no pause in the torment, no suspen- 
 sion of the judgment, no return of a sabbath in 
 hell. 
 
 2. As a day of rest, the sabbath is pecu- 
 liarly grateful to the labouring classes. 
 
 Upon you, ray brethren, the original sentence 
 sometimes presses heavily; yet learn to be thank- 
 ful that the law of England, equally with the 
 law of God, provides you with a day of rest from 
 your labours ; a day of access to the means of 
 religious knowledge and instruction ; a day of 
 leisure to reflect upon the morrow of eternity ; a 
 day of preparation for the concerns of the soul. 
 The Bible had been a sealed book to the poor, 
 but for that convenient and accessible means of 
 
Ill 
 
 publication and exposition, which the frequent 
 recurrence of a sabbath lecture-day affords them. 
 In no one instance of the providence of grace is 
 the wisdom of God so apparent, as in the institu- 
 tion of the sabbath for the spread and preserva- 
 tion of his truth. No other means could have 
 answered the important end so well ; this alone 
 has kept piety in the world so long. The poor 
 are the great majority in every nation under 
 heaven; any institution, therefore, which is cal- 
 culated for their benefit, and to engage them in 
 any enterprise, is sure of the more general and 
 more permanent endurance. Such an institution 
 is the sabbath to the poor. But remember, 
 brethren, that the abused means of grace con- 
 fiscate the hope of glory; and neglect of privilege 
 leaves you, not as you are, but a subject of 
 greater condemnation. 
 
 3. We learn that though on this day the 
 body is to rest, the soul is to wake her thoughts 
 towards God. 
 
 In this view the day of rest is a figure of the 
 grave where the body reposes, though the soul 
 has sought her kindred heaven, and her God. 
 In this sense let us all, especially on the sabbath, 
 seek to be " dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto 
 
112 
 
 God, through Jesus Christ our Lord." Let us 
 " call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, 
 honourable ; and let us honour him by not doing 
 our own ways, nor finding our own pleasure, nor 
 speaking our own words." Let us not incur the 
 prophet's taxation on them who " swallow up 
 the needy," &c., saying, " When will the new 
 moon be gone, that we may sell corn, and the 
 sabbath, that we may set forth wheat ? " Let us 
 welcome it in coming, lament it when it is gone, 
 and long for its speedy return, that when the 
 sabbath-eve of death cometh, when no man can 
 work more for ever, this body may keep its day 
 of rest in sure and christian hope, when heavenly 
 worship begins, to hear its summons to that 
 other tabernacle, the house not made with hands, 
 eternal in the heavens ! Thus may the sabbath 
 bell, which summons us, body and soul, into 
 the service of the sanctuary here, remind us 
 of the last trump of the archangel, which shall 
 recal into spiritual union the soul, with her re- 
 newed and transfigured body, hereafter, that as 
 on earth, so in heaven, they may together glorify 
 the Lord for ever ! 
 
 Lastly. Another, and a parting word to the 
 sabbath-breaker. Poor enemy to thyself! thou 
 
113 
 
 art a double suicide ; slaying thy body by steal- 
 ing her rest, slaying thy soul by refusing her 
 food! Thou art a double sabbath-breaker; 
 violating the one which thou mayest have here, 
 robbing thyself of that which will be lost to thee 
 hereafter! Thou art a double captive unto sin 
 and Satan ; both heart and hand, will and way, 
 soul and body, thou art his bondsman here, and 
 thus thou wilt be a double prisoner, soul and 
 body, in his chains hereafter ! Oh flee for refuge 
 then, while you have time to run ; flee to the 
 sabbath sanctuary — well called a sanctuary — for 
 the devil cannot harm you there, if you resist 
 him, for then he will flee from you. Flee, yet not 
 with the Icarian wings of your own devices, but 
 with His almighty ones, who, like a dove, de- 
 scended on your Saviour. Flee, for " the Lord 
 will destroy this place," where sinners dwell ; 
 " look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all 
 their plains ;" escape to the mountain, where the 
 Cross directs you :" Thither " flee from the 
 wrath to come," which, though future and before 
 us, must be fled from, as if it were behind ; flee 
 still upward, ever upward, never resting short of 
 God; and the prophet tells you, "ye shall mount 
 up with wings as eagles ;" of whom, however 
 
114 
 
 fabulous the report, it shall be realized in your 
 flight; your wings shall be stronger, and your 
 force the greater, the higher you fly, the nearer 
 you approach towards heaven. " Ye shall mount 
 up with wings as eagles ; ye shall run and not be 
 weary, ye shall walk and not faint." Not faint ! 
 oh no — except the one last fit of dying nature, 
 from which grace shall revive thee in the arms 
 of God. The Lord give our souls wings, as his 
 ministering angels, to use them in his service 
 here, that the same may bear us to his house 
 hereafter ! 
 
SERMON V. 
 
 MORAL USES OF THE SABBATH. 
 
 Luke XXIII. 54. 
 
 "And that day was the preparation, and the sabbath drew on." 
 
 In our last discourse we dwelt at large upon 
 the necessity of the sabbath as a day of rest, 
 touching both our physical and moral welfare. 
 We proceed this evening to consider more at 
 large the uses of this sacred rest, i. e. the proper 
 sanctification of the sabbath. We shall, how- 
 ever, previously consider what are those acts of 
 necessity and charity which form lawful excep- 
 tions to the general rule of rest ; and endeavour 
 to discover what manner of indulgences on this 
 head our blessed Lord allowed. 
 
 First. — Acts of necessity. That only is a 
 lawful necessity which Providence, and not 
 creature circumstances, made such. For in- 
 stance, Providence has so constituted our bodies, 
 
116 
 
 that food is necessary for our subsistence every 
 day; the proper preparation therefore of that 
 food, we call a providential necessity. But if a 
 man engage to perform in the week more secular 
 business than he finds himself able to accomplish, 
 without encroaching upon the sabbath, he has 
 incurred a creature necessity; and as in the scale 
 of moral obligation God is to be obeyed at all risks 
 and losses, that encroachment is a violation of the 
 sabbath law, which says, that in the " six days 
 thou shalt do all that thou hast to do," that there 
 may be nothing to be done on the seventh. God 
 gives us six days to prepare for one, yet how 
 anxious are they who are never " in the spirit 
 on the Lord's day," to smuggle in a part of their 
 week-day business on the sabbath ; yet we never 
 see the same anxiety to intrude a tittle of the 
 sabbath duties into the week. Oh no ; Mammon 
 is welcome to a whole week, but " grudgingly, 
 and of necessity, they scarce give unto God his 
 one day. Alas ! for that poor " stick-gatherer 
 on the sabbath" to whom God's worship is a 
 drudgery, but the world's business, or the devil's 
 service, a relief and recreation. 
 
 But there are some cases of necessity, the law- 
 fulness of which rests upon the Divine example 
 
117 
 
 and permission. Thus our Lord said, " My Father 
 worketh hitherto," meaning on the sabbath-day, 
 as he does in still preserving our lives, and up- 
 holding his creation; " and I work," i. e. I also 
 perform necessary and charitable acts, directed to 
 the same end. As the Jews built their ob- 
 servance of the sabbath upon the fact of God's 
 having rested on that day, our Lord's argument 
 from this economy of Providence on the same 
 day, completely answered their objection to his 
 doing an act of mercy. This example of Provi- 
 dence, then, is our warrant for the performance 
 of all such acts as the health or life of man or 
 beast requires. ' ■ Which of you," said our Lord, 
 "^shall have an ass, or an ox, fallen into a pit, 
 and will not straightway pull him out on the 
 sabbath-day ?" At the same time let us be espe- 
 cially careful, that all these our acts of necessity 
 come within the before-specified necessity of Pro- 
 vidence, and not of our own inadvertency, or 
 forcing, or neglect. Touching the cure of dis- 
 eases, some have made a scruple of conscience 
 in regard of a difference between imminent and 
 chronic diseases; these esteem the latter unlaw- 
 ful to be healed on the sabbath, arguing, that 
 since the patient had borne the malady so long. 
 
118 
 
 it would not harm him to bear it one day longer, 
 that the sabbath may be saved. 
 
 Tenderness of conscience is always lovely, and 
 should never be the subject of rebuke, much less 
 of ridicule : we wish therefore to be understood 
 as suggesting nothing beyond an admonition 
 from Scripture, when we allege our Lord's 
 example for the healing of any manner of disease 
 on the sabbath, whether chronic or otherwise. 
 Not to mention the palsy, the impotent man, or 
 others of a like kindred, let us turn to our Lord's 
 remark on his healing the poor woman of her 
 chronic infirmity of eighteen years' standing: — 
 " Doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose 
 his ox or his ass fi'om the stall, and lead him 
 away to watering ; and ought not this woman, 
 being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath 
 bound, lo, these eighteen years, to be loosed 
 from this bond on the sabbath day?" Passing 
 by the 'particular use of the apposition of these 
 two -cases, does it not place them both on a par ; 
 making both equally lawful necessities ? If so, 
 there is no need of our making distinctions, where 
 God has made none. The spirit in which an 
 act is done, is the feature in which God beholds 
 it ; and though the apostle says, " Let no man 
 
119 
 
 judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of a 
 holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath 
 days ;" yet, though we are freed from the rigid 
 ceremonial of the Jewish observance of the sab- 
 bath, still we are under greater and stricter 
 obligations than the Jews themselves were; though 
 having neither their day nor manner, we have 
 the day of rest, the day of " God, who is a Spirit, 
 who is therefore to be worshipped in spirit and 
 in truth;" and far as the spirit is above the 
 letter, so far are our obligations of sabbath ob- 
 servance superior to the Jewish. 
 
 Secondly. There are also limitations in the law- 
 fulness of acts of cliarity. There are many cha- 
 ritable acts which are not lawful on the sabbath. 
 Thus it would be a charitable act to teach poor 
 children any honest craft, to enable them to earn 
 a livelihood ; but it would violate the sacred cha- 
 racter and design of the day of rest to employ it 
 for such purposes. The sabbath, as a day of 
 lessons, is not for the body, which must rest, but 
 for the soul, which must wake to her God. The 
 distinctions may be more clearly shown from an 
 example. Take those asylums of piety and nur- 
 series of the Church — our Sunday schools. It is 
 a charitable act to teach poor children to read 
 
120 
 
 and write; but if they were taught to read out 
 of any other book, or with any other view than 
 to enable them to read the book of God, these 
 lessons would be unlawful on the sabbath. 
 An ability to read is indispensably necessary to 
 open the Bible to the poor. We are therefore 
 not only lawfully employed, but are also in the 
 way of duty when teaching them. Our blessed 
 Lord condescended to teach the poor, and notice 
 children ; where then is the mind so great, or 
 the rank so exalted, or the feeling so delicate, as 
 to blush to seek its pupils among the poorest of 
 the community ? Never is learning so dignified, 
 or station so ennobled, or loveliness so beautified, 
 as when opening the blessed book of Heaven 
 to the little school of poor children at their 
 feet. It is beginning angels' work below; it 
 is following Jesus to the fishermen's huts of 
 Galilee ; it is imitating Him who " chose the 
 foolish things of the world to confound the wise, 
 and the weak things of the world to confound 
 the things that are mighty." But we were about 
 to observe, that the teaching them to read on the 
 sabbath was only lawful, in respect of its ne- 
 cessity to their knowledge of Scripture; any 
 other teaching which cannot be known to be as 
 
121 
 
 indispensably necessary, must not be allowed. 
 Thus, the propriety of teaching them to write, 
 which has prevailed in some schools, may be 
 justly questioned. Now, the art of writing, 
 though a great help, is not indispensably neces- 
 sary to the art of reading ; perhaps, then, writing 
 lessons are out of place in a Sunday school. 
 Yet as passages of Scripture may be thus more 
 deeply impressed on the memory by being used 
 as copies for children, and as it is desirable to 
 furnish the poor with means of communicating 
 their knowledge and experience to their absent 
 friends, perhaps the use of the Bible and of 
 the sabbath to promote this end, may not be 
 considered by some to be at variance with the 
 sacred institution, considered as a day of means 
 of religious instruction. They may esteem it a 
 point to be left to the consciences of individuals, 
 subject to the apostle's limitation — " Happy is 
 he that condemneth not himself in that thing 
 which he alloweth." For ourselves, it appears 
 to be not sufficient to say how useful an ability 
 to write may be, to the better understanding of 
 the Scriptures, since the same plea of utility may 
 be urged in favour of lessons in geography, na- 
 tural and political history, astronomy, and the 
 
 G 
 
122 
 
 original languages in which Scripture was written. 
 All these sciences would eminently contribute 
 to the better elucidation of revealed truth ; but 
 the question is, cannot the runner read without 
 them ? need the wayfaring man, though a fool, 
 err without them ? cannot Jesus Christ, and him 
 crucified, be learned without them? is heart-know- 
 ledge of God impossible without them ? is the 
 soul's salvation insecure without them ? if not, then 
 the teaching to write, and all other acquirements 
 which are only useful, but not absolutely neces' 
 sary io the knowledge of Scripture, appear to be 
 so many violations of the sabbath, and the school 
 which allows them must surrender its character 
 as a religious institution, in which light only 
 Sunday schools can be lawfully tolerated. 
 
 Upon the whole, then, we trust we have sa- 
 tisfactorily demonstrated the truth of this general 
 rule of lawful exceptions to the sabbath rest. 
 That those acts of necessity or charity are only 
 lawful, so far as Providence has made them both 
 acts of necessity, to the well-being of the body 
 or the soul. In these cases. Divine Providence 
 himself, whose only is the prerogative, virtually 
 sanctions the charitable use of his sabbath, and 
 discovers to us the truth of his own declaration, 
 
123 
 
 that " the sabbath was made for man, and not 
 man for the sabbath." Whenever therefore the 
 moral or physical necessity of his creatures 
 demands it, " the Lord of the sabbath" rightly 
 places it at their disposal : — " I will have mercy," 
 says God, " and not sacrifice." 
 
 To return then to our text, where we discover 
 some profitable matter of reflection. We shall 
 bring before your notice, briefly, three points : 
 
 I. The duty of preparing for the sabbath, — 
 " that day was the preparation." 
 
 II. Its due observance as a day of devotion. 
 
 III. The proper manner of closing the day. 
 And may that Holy Spirit, whose we are, and 
 
 whom we serve, vouchsafe us here " the prepara- 
 tions of the heart, and the answer of the tongue," 
 that we may be together edified, and his holy 
 name glorified as in heaven so on earth, now 
 and ever. Amen ! 
 
 I. The duty of 'preparing for the sabbath. 
 " That day was the preparation :" which day, 
 upon inquiry, we find was the Friday, the day 
 before the Jewish sabbath, which began on the 
 sunset of the Friday, and ended on the sunset of 
 Saturday. Thus Moses said, " To-morrow is 
 the rest of the holy sabbath unto the Lord; bake 
 G 2 
 
124 
 
 that which ye will bake to-day, and seethe that | 
 which ye will seethe, and that which remaineth I 
 over, lay up for you to be kept until the morn- 
 ing." Here then, we remark the first point of 
 preparation for the sabbath-day. Let every thing 
 which can be prepared for use on the Sunday be 
 ready on the Saturday, that there be as little 
 work as possible necessary on the sabbath. 
 Many devout Christians exhibit their moral bene- 
 volence by following the precept of Moses, in 
 regard of having no preparation at all for food on 
 the sabbath. It were well not only for our own 
 better observance of the day, but for the relief of 
 our dependants also, that this custom were gene- 
 rally adopted. The master, whose unnecessary 
 indulgence on the Lord's-day prevents his servant 
 from attending God's house, violates the sabbath 
 by proxy and implication ; nothing is more cruel 
 and unkind than that want of feeling and con- 
 sideration, which causes us to injure the man- 
 servant or the maid-servant in both body and 
 soul, — a blow that may haply wound them in both 
 worlds. It is no unmeaning sensibility to call 
 this " the unkindest cut of all;" this is oppression 
 no less than satanic; this is the true gall of bond- 
 age, and this " the iron that enters into the soul." 
 
125 
 
 He who would wilfully debar his servant from 
 the sanctuary, is but one degree removed from 
 that evil one, who would keep a soul from 
 heaven. Let us remember, then, they have souls 
 to be saved in the common salvation, and that 
 the domestic Sanballat, who hinders the building 
 of the spiritual temple, shall not be numbered 
 among the Lord's congregation. We might here 
 descant upon the genuine policy of the measure, 
 it being capable of easy proof, that the servant 
 who faithfully serves God will, upon the highest 
 principle, faithfully serve his " master according 
 to the flesh, not with eye-service as men pleasers, 
 but in singleness of heart, fearing God." And 
 who has not felt the value of an upright trust- 
 worthy servant ? We might, I say, use this 
 argument as another inducement to our careful- 
 ness on behalf of the spiritual wants of our 
 dependants, only that it becomes not the pulpit 
 to mix temporal policy with spiritual duty — to 
 use the hand of an Uzzah to support the ark. 
 
 Again : The desirableness of this preparation, 
 touching temporal concerns, has been felt at 
 times by every sincere Christian ; we mean the 
 general preparation, which leaves nothing to be 
 done on the Monday which could be done on 
 
126 
 
 the Saturday, that there be no temptation to 
 make the sabbath a link between the past and 
 coming week. It is, above all things, desirable 
 to have the holy day (as its title " holy" intends) 
 a separate, distinct, and devoted day, having 
 nothing in common or in connexion vpith other 
 days ; a day more of the spirit than of the body — 
 more of heaven than of earth — more a season 
 borrowed from eternity, than a period selected 
 from time. The most devout mind has some- 
 times felt its thoughts wandering, with Gehazi, 
 from the prophet's house, after " the talents of 
 silver and the changes of raiment," and it has 
 taxed itself with the question, " Is it a time to 
 receive money, and to receive garments and olive- 
 yards ?" and so forth. It has felt the force of its 
 own rebuke ; has confessed, however willing the 
 spirit, the flesh is weak ; and acknowledged, that 
 on this day especially the " very thought of 
 foolishness is sin;" and prayed earnestly for 
 grace to receive more grace, for more of " the 
 hearing ear and understanding heart." 
 
 How much of this painful sense of weakness 
 and lukewarmness had been spared them, had 
 they made more preparation in the six days of 
 the body, for the one day of the spirit! He that 
 
127 
 
 knew the body's weakness gave us the six, to 
 prepare the spirit for the due and profitable 
 enjoyment of the one. Let us then, in the week, 
 be more " diligent in business," that on the 
 sabbath we may be more " fervent in spirit 
 as in the former, by his providence, serving 
 ourselves, so in the latter " serving the Lord." 
 But if there be a secular matter left undone, 
 whether of necessity or neglect, then pray God 
 it may not be the holy morrow's " thorn in the 
 flesh ;" the ground of temptation, the common, 
 the besetting, the Achillean point, upon which 
 all men are vulnerable, the heel which the old 
 serpent bruised, and still bruises, and how sel- 
 dom, as in the beginning, without a fall. Do not 
 let it trouble you, but leave it in the world, or 
 rather leave it in the hands of Providence ; ye 
 cannot gain so much by being troubled in Jesus' 
 presence, by the " carefulness about many 
 things," as ye would lose by missing the choice of 
 " the good part which shall never be taken from 
 you." There is nothing gained, even in this 
 world, in the long run, by " the money-changers," 
 who bring their bartering spirits into the house 
 of prayer ; the Lord, as of old, overthrows their 
 tables, and if not in the body, yet in the spirit, 
 
128 
 
 Alas, for their spiritual bankruptcy ! It is a 
 mercy to the congregation, when the Lord 
 cleanses the seats of those who sit not in the 
 temple to worship. 
 
 Once more : besides the preparation for the 
 necessary wants of the body on the day, 
 and the closing of all worldly affairs before 
 the day, there is the preparation touching 
 the state of the soul. True, we cannot pre- 
 pare ourselves ; man can move the members of 
 his body, but cannot of himself effect the 
 motions of his soul. This is peculiarly and 
 exclusively His work, who, from his own being, 
 first breathed into our nostrils the breath of life. 
 To him, then, must we appeal in prayer, for 
 grace to enable us to prepare the thoughts of 
 our hearts for religious contemplation; and, as 
 David said, " Lord, thou hast heard the desire 
 of the humble, thou wilt prepare their heart, 
 thou wilt cause thine ear to hear." Thus let 
 us, like the Jews, begin, by our preparations, 
 the sabbath on the evening before, and thus 
 begin where God began the first sabbath. For 
 darkness was before the light in creation ; and 
 God called each following " evening and morn- 
 ing" the successive day, and used the same 
 
129 
 
 language (not morning and evening, but " even- 
 ing and morning,") on the seventh, and so began 
 his holy rest on the evening before that morning, 
 which, both together, he called his sabbath. 
 
 It is ours to follow the Divine example, and 
 thus, 
 
 1. To abstain on the evening previous to the 
 Sunday from all such occupations and amuse- 
 ments which are calculated to alienate the mind 
 from sober and devout reflection. Thus, then, 
 late convivial parties on the Saturday, especially 
 where such excesses as in gambling, or drinking, 
 and the like, are the custom, are so many 
 violations of the sabbath — accessories before 
 the fact — in unfitting the mind for the morrow's 
 solemnity. The pale and feverish brow of 
 recent revelry but ill-becomes the house of 
 prayer. The sacrifice of such a state of mind 
 God has not required ; its very " incense is an 
 abomination;" th6ir sabbaths and their calling 
 of assemblies God cannot away with ; " even their 
 solemn meeting will be iniquity." But, on the 
 other hand, if the evening of preparation for 
 the sabbath be spent at home, in that quiet air 
 of expectation which silently proclaims through- 
 out the house, " To-morrow is the rest of the 
 G 3 
 
130 
 
 holy sabbath unto the Lord;" by invoking his 
 grace, and consulting his blessed word, and 
 retiring to rest at such seasonable hour that we 
 may be enabled, with the Divine blessing, to 
 present our composed and refreshed bodies in 
 the morning " a living sacrifice, holy, accept- 
 able unto the Lord;" this is the only profitable 
 approach to the sanctuary, this the preparation 
 becoming its solemnities, and this is none other 
 than our reasonable service. 
 We briefly notice, 
 
 IL The due observance of the sabbath as a 
 day of devotion. 
 
 Much that may be said on this head was 
 necessarily anticipated in our remarks upon the 
 sabbath as a day of rest. We there described 
 the duties of man in his social and domestic cha- 
 racter, touching public worship and private in- 
 struction of his children and dependants at 
 home. Our present remarks concern the man 
 individually ; and we shall find the most perfect 
 summary of his duties in this respect, which 
 the Bible contains, in Isaiah Iviii. 13: "If 
 thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath ;" — the 
 foot in Scripture is frequently used for any 
 labour generally; thus David said, in a sense 
 
131 
 
 that explains this passage, (and Scripture always 
 best explains itself,) " I have refrained my feet 
 from every evil way, that I might keep thy 
 word ;" — if thus, " thou turn away thy foot" from 
 ordinary occupation on the sabbath — " from 
 doing thy pleasure on my holy day." There are 
 pleasures pure and innocent at other seasons, 
 which become the pleasures of sin if indulged on 
 the sabbath, when none but God's pleasure is to 
 be allowed, for it is God's day ; not to mention 
 those who openly violate the sabbath by making 
 it the day of recreation and amusements, and 
 whose " sabbath-day's journey" is not to the 
 temple at Jerusalem, but to the inn at Jericho ; 
 and, alas ! how frequent are the visitations that 
 befal the sabbath-breakers ! What shall be 
 said of those half-hearted worshippers who 
 give the morning or the noon to the ways of the 
 world, and bring the poor remnant of the 
 maimed and broken day as an offering to the 
 sanctuary at night ? Can they believe it likely 
 that the jealous God will accept the unhallowed 
 fragment ? Oh, no ! none but the whole burnt- 
 offering will God abide; the only unentire and 
 broken sacrifices God ever accepts are the 
 " sacrifices of a broken spirit ;" and even there 
 
132 
 
 the faith must be whole. These pleasures of our 
 own must be given up, and purer pleasures to be 
 found on the sabbath, which further we are to 
 call " a delight, the holy of the Lord, honour- 
 able ;" and in what sense honourable the prophet 
 tells us — thou " shalt honour him, not doing 
 thine own ways;" "for my ways are not as 
 your ways, nor my thoughts as your thoughts." 
 By our own ways is meant, in scriptural lan- 
 guage, our usual course of life. We are required 
 to abstain, then, from all matters of ordinary 
 business or pleasure; from the perusal of all 
 books, papers, or letters, which are not strictly 
 of a religious character; from wasting the 
 sacred hours in unnecessary dress, the which is 
 too common a vice on the sabbath among the 
 humbler walks of life; from ministering to the 
 luxurious appetite ; and, in short, from every act 
 upon which we could not appeal to conscience, 
 and inquire. If it were befitting the Lord's-day. 
 
 Again : " Thou shalt honour him, not finding 
 thine own pleasure," which we have observed 
 before ; " nor speaking thine own words," convers- 
 ing in a secular spirit, as we are too apt to do even 
 on the threshold of the sanctuary, on the strangers 
 or friends whom we noticed among the congrega- 
 
133 
 
 tion ; on the mere creature merits or faults of the 
 sermon, or the psalms ; on the new dresses, 
 fashions, gains and losses, markets, diversions, 
 news, politics, arrivals, the state of the weather, 
 of the season, of the crops, and even of the acci- 
 dents, diseases, and deaths, of the neighbourhood, 
 which, unless observed upon in a calm and 
 solemn reference to Him in whose hands is 
 the disposal and ordinance of all things, do 
 assuredly minister unto sin. On this day, 
 in the words of the apostle, as much as lieth 
 in us, as much as human infirmity will allow 
 us, we should " have our conversation in heaven." 
 Then, instead of the sabbath being a gloomy 
 day, as they only feel it who cannot " delight 
 themselves in the Lord," who have no taste or 
 relish for the purer exercises of the soul ; then 
 shall we heartily " call the sabbath a delight, 
 the holy of the Lord, honourable ;" honourable 
 to the love and wisdom that devised the means 
 of grace, — honourable to the soul who loves it 
 for her hope of glory. 
 
 Again : if the above be the scriptural account 
 of the manner and extent in which the holy day 
 is to be observed, what answer shall those pro- 
 fessing Christians make who confess no difference 
 
134 
 
 between the sabbath and any other day of the 
 week, or who pretend to keep every day as a 
 sabbath ? Is it possible they can Uve in the 
 world, and avoid " doing their own ways, finding 
 their own pleasure, and speaking their own 
 words," in the course of the lawful business of 
 the week ? It is true, religion is an every day 
 concern, and we should endeavour '* to live each 
 day as if the last ;" but every day is not the sab- 
 bath ; God has required but one such scrupulous 
 and devoted day in every seven, why then should 
 they " be wise above what is written," and vir- 
 tually reply to God, that they know themselves 
 better than he who made them, and can govern 
 themselves without the aid of his gracious ordi- 
 nances? We are not to be answered by an 
 affirmation so injurious to the honour of God, 
 that the sabbath, which we have in former dis- 
 courses shown to be an institution so essentially 
 necessary to the existence of God's truth in the 
 world, was one which, nevertheless, Infinite 
 Wisdom had ovei'looked, and therefore man's 
 wisdom invented it for him ; and being of human 
 invention, consequently its observance a mere 
 matter of expediency, and not of conscience. 
 We trust the Divine appointment of the sabbath 
 
135 
 
 has been clearly proved to you ; then God has 
 made a difference between that day and the rest. 
 Let man, then, at his peril, confound the day of 
 rest with the days of labour ; the day of heaven 
 with the days of earth ; the day of the Spirit 
 with the days of flesh. 
 
 Moreover, let it for a moment be granted, that 
 there are some beings so different and superior 
 to their fellows around them, that the sabbath 
 means of grace is an immaterial ordinance to 
 them, and that they are fully persuaded in their 
 own minds that they can worship God acceptably 
 without it. We would ask such, do they owe 
 no duty, no compassion, to the vast majority of 
 their weaker brethren ? are they, by their ex- 
 ample of absence from the sanctuary, " to destroy 
 him for whom Christ died?" "None of us," 
 says the apostle, at the end of the passage which 
 these an ti- Sabbatarians misquote for their autho- 
 rity, wherein it is plain, from the whole scope of 
 the chapter and design of the Epistle, that Jewish 
 holy days generally are meant, and not the spe- 
 cial holy day, wherein they were "to forsake 
 not the assembling of themselves together, as 
 the manner of some is ;" — " none of us," said 
 he — and the words are conclusive on the point 
 
136 
 
 of duty we contend for, — " none of us liveth to 
 himself, and no man dieth for himself ;" but this 
 living and dying is " unto the Lord ;" that is, 
 following the Lord, in obedience and trust walk- 
 ing in his ways. The Lord Hved and underwent 
 many things, as his baptism, circumcision, and 
 the like, altogether unnecessary to himself indi- 
 vidually, but strictly necessary to him in his rela- 
 tion to us, as our great example. And thus the 
 consistent followers of " that light that lighteneth 
 every man that cometh into the world," endea- 
 vour so to " let their light shine before men, 
 that they may see their good works, and glorify 
 their Father which is in heaven." Thus the 
 ancient church had her solemn assemblies, to 
 promote, by the public example of the faithful, 
 the more general acknowledgment of God. Thus 
 the early Christians, though their assembling 
 together was ever accompanied with peril to their 
 lives, still, early in the morning, and late at 
 night, met to keep their public sabbath, and 
 considered the day, without the public duty, to 
 be unsanctified. Believers have no other oppor- 
 tunity of setting society, as such, an example ; and 
 here is at once both the point of duty, and of 
 expediency. Man, as a social being, is too apt 
 
137 
 
 to forget that he will have to answer for his abuse 
 of the talent of society, according to the good or 
 evil his influence promoted therein, in his day 
 and generation. We may suggest it as a general 
 rule, that as in non-essential points of doctrine 
 and practice it is the duty of the few to yield to 
 the majority, that the peace of the church may 
 be preserved; surely, in a matter of such ac- 
 knowledged utility, to say the least of the sab- 
 batic institution, whatever opinion be indulged 
 upon its Divine authority, it is a sin, and a 
 satanic subtlety, for any man to cast a stumbling- 
 block, by his own neglect, in the way of his 
 brother to the sanctuary. 
 
 III. We have noticed the preparation for the 
 sabbath ; its exclusive observance as a day of 
 devotion ; and now we inquire into the fitting 
 manner of bringing it to its close. 
 
 As it began, so should it end, in prayer and 
 praise. The solemn feelings which were excited 
 in the congregation should not be left behind 
 us on the altar, like the cold embers of an offered 
 sacrifice, but the sacred fire should be brought 
 away, and carefully carried home in our bosoms, 
 lest the rude winds of the world extinguish it by 
 the way. All the light is wanted for the family 
 
138 
 
 altar ; and there let the good man of the house 
 worship with his children ; there, each before his 
 own domestic or lonely altar, let us all bow down ; 
 and, 
 
 1. In prayer, that it may please God to 
 forgive us " the many things in which we offend 
 all the omissions of duty of which we have 
 been guilty ; the imperfection of our best ser- 
 vices; the little improvement and increase we 
 have made in grace ; the coldness of spirit in 
 which we have detected ourselves ; and the wan- 
 dering thoughts which we have indulged during, 
 or between, the services of the day. 
 
 Then should follow the prayer, that the doc- 
 trines we have heard bring forth, in our amended 
 lives and conversations, the manifold fruits of the 
 Spirit ; that the prayers we have offered up be 
 answered, not according to our will, but accord- 
 ing to God's will ; not according to the ignorance 
 and short-sightedness of the petitioners, but ac- 
 cording to His knowledge who sees all things in 
 their various connexion and tendencies; and 
 according to His benevolence, who careth for 
 our souls. That every faithful effort, no matter 
 where, to enlarge the borders of Zion, be blessed 
 with increased, and still increasing success ; that 
 
139 
 
 the glory of the day may soon arrive, when all 
 the tribes of earth shall keep her sabbath, as 
 unanimously, as heartily, and exclusively, as it 
 is observed among the holy ones of heaven; — and, 
 finally, that the past day may have brought us 
 nearer to our God and heaven, another step out 
 of the world, and so much farther from the path 
 to hell. 
 
 2. Let us close the day in praise, giving thanks 
 for the day of grace and privilege ; — thanks, that 
 we were born in a land of sabbaths and ordi- 
 nances ; — thanks, that we have health and oppor- 
 tunity vouchsafed us to embrace the means, and 
 grace to incline our hearts, to profit by them ; — 
 thanks, for the extensive good which we trust has 
 been effected throughout the spiritual Zion; — 
 thanks for the Divine support which has been 
 afforded to the public ministration of the truth ; — 
 thanks and praises for all the temporal blessings 
 that have encompassed us on every side, and 
 especially for all the spiritual blessings with 
 which we have been blessed in heavenly places 
 in Christ Jesus. 
 
 Thus the pious mind, which prepared itself 
 for the sabbath, thus on the sabbath prepares 
 itself, renews its strength for the coming week ; 
 
140 
 
 and thus the blessing which sanctified his day of 
 rest follows its happy possessor through his 
 days of labour. This is the true economy of 
 life ; this the genuine policy of faith ; this the 
 healthful aliment of hope; this the sweetest 
 exercise of love ; this the travelling that leads to 
 heaven, while it shows the way. 
 
 Two reflections upon the whole subject shall 
 suffice us to conclude. 
 
 We have dwelt upon the necessity of prepara- 
 tion for the sabbath. Our departed friends, who 
 are now in the blessed world of spirits, have 
 found that this our whole life was the preparation 
 for the sabbath of death — that time was the pre- 
 paration for eternity, and earth the preparation 
 for heaven. 
 
 If preparation be necessary for these imperfect 
 sabbaths, that come but to pass away, what pre- 
 paration have we made for that sabbath which is 
 coming to endure for ever? "Brethren, the 
 time is short." To some one of our souls may 
 the angel of death be commissioned to say this 
 night, " To-morrow is the rest of the eternal 
 sabbath unto the Lord." Is thy house in order, 
 ready to allow thee entrance " to that other house 
 not made with hands, eternal in the heavens ?" 
 
141 
 
 There are many who have not granted unto 
 them the day of preparation ; but the sum- 
 mons is, not to-morrow, but " this night, thy 
 soul shall be required of thee." In the mean 
 time, every hour is a means of grace ; and if the 
 last hour find us ready, life will have been a 
 privilege, and death will be, instead of a curse, 
 as in its origin, the chief and last blessing of life 
 in the end. Its original order will be reversed 
 eternally ; for the same death that first expelled 
 us from the paradise here, shall be the means to 
 restore us to the better paradise hereafter. But 
 as man began here to leave behind him the 
 former, man must begin here to press forward 
 towards the latter ; as we have all together gone 
 astray, so must we all return ; and life is so brief 
 and so uncertain, that the journeyman in Scrip- 
 ture is always bade to hasten, and flee, and run, 
 and walk, and never to sit at ease, even in Sion ; 
 for though he may be there feeding upon the 
 fruit of the tree of life, the serpent, as of old, 
 may be offering him that which is forbidden. 
 We are under a moral, as well as a natural, sen- 
 tence of labour ; we are to up, and be doing ; to 
 up, and be going ; and never to rest short of the 
 summit of the spiritual Mount Nebo, whence our 
 
142 
 
 souls may clearly trace and certify the prospect 
 of the promised land. But let us not be one of 
 those idlers of Israel, who delay their return to 
 God, as if it were always too soon to begin the 
 journey, but never too late to reach heaven in 
 time. " Forty years long was God grieved with 
 the people in the wilderness," but he shut them 
 out of Canaan at last. Is there a forty years' 
 sinner here who is still in the moral wilderness ? 
 Perhaps your Lord for the last time addresses 
 you, as he did Jerusalem of old, — " If thou hadst 
 known :" he makes no promise for the future ; 
 but in reference to all the long guilty past, he 
 speaks a present, though a last, offer of grace to 
 you, — " Even thou, at least in this thy day, the 
 things that belong to thy peace," to the present 
 and eternal peace and sabbath of the soul : — Oh, 
 tarry not, " at least in this thy day," lest the 
 morrow come to close the final sentence with 
 that awful and irrevocable word, " Now, they 
 are for ever hidden from thy eyes." Oh, rather 
 embrace at once the other now, " for now is our 
 salvation nearer than when we believed ;" — 
 " behold, now is the accepted time ; behold, now 
 is the day of salvation." But if we content our- 
 selves, like the false prophet, with the knowledge, 
 
143 
 
 "I shall see him, but not now,- I shall behold 
 him, but not nigh ;" alas, for the impenitent 
 and unpardoned sinner "s sight, when, from their 
 trembling distance' — 
 
 " Every eye shall then behold him 
 Robed in dreadful majesty ; 
 Those who set at nought and sold him, 
 Pierc'd and nail'd him to the tree, 
 Deeply wailing, shall the true Messiah see." 
 
 Lastly. A word to those whose anxious feet 
 are already " shod with the preparation of the 
 gospel of peace," of the glad tidings of that sab- 
 bath " rest that remaineth for the people of 
 God." 
 
 Happy in your hopes of heaven, well described 
 as the prepared place for a prepared people ; 
 be encouraged to go on from strength to strength, 
 running the race that is set before you, looking 
 unto Jesus, the author, till ye find him to be the 
 finisher, of your faith ; praying always with all 
 prayer; conversing with heaven, and learning 
 its language ; and having fellowship with the 
 Father through the Son, who, as our elder bro- 
 ther, hath brought us into the holy family, by 
 the love of God shed abroad in our hearts, 
 through the Holy Ghost, given to us. See that 
 
144 
 
 ye confer not with flesh and blood, but lay aside 
 every weight, and the easily besetting, the bosom 
 sin ; walk worthy of the vocation wherewith 
 ye are called; worthy of the name of Christ, 
 worthy of the blood of your spiritual descent, 
 worthy of your prospects of the goodly heritage, 
 worthy of the communion of saints and angels, 
 worthy of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 and of the love of God, and the fellowship of the 
 Holy Ghost. And thus to walk, you must be 
 led ; then here you have the word to " follow the 
 Lamb whithersoever he goeth ;" and to you who 
 are prepared to follow him to the end, he said in 
 the body, " I go to prepare a place for you;" and 
 in the spirit, there he sitteth at the right hand of 
 God, ready to apportion the many mansions of 
 his Father's house to his faithful followers, and 
 there to welcome his prepared people " to the 
 kingdom prepared for them (in the Lamb that was 
 slain) from the foundation of the world." 
 
SERMON VI. 
 
 THE SABBATH A TYPE OF HEAVEN. 
 
 Revelation XXI. 22. 
 
 " And I saw no temple therein : for the Lord God Almighty 
 and the Lamb are the temple of it." 
 
 In this, our last sermon on the Sabbath, we 
 shall consider it in its character of a type of 
 heaven. We have had frequent occasion to re- 
 fer to it under this view already ; we hope to 
 point out the type more distinctly and forcibly, 
 in a whole sermon, devoted to the subject, and 
 which we trust will not be deemed unprofitable, 
 seeing that a Christian's interest in any theme is 
 always dependant upon, and proportional to, its 
 reference and connexion with the heavenly world. 
 We have taken our text from the writings of the 
 last of the christian prophets, in whose descrip- 
 tions of that heavenly world, which is to be the 
 end of this last dispensation to man, we remark 
 
 H 
 
146 
 
 a becoming sublimity and consistency of charac- 
 ter, and a peculiar point of coincidence with the 
 prophecies of Malachi, the last of the Jewish 
 prophets, who concluded his writings with fore- 
 telling the coming kingdom of heaven in the 
 gospel, which was to be the end of his dispen- 
 sation. The latter referred to the kingdom of 
 heaven in the body, which idea of a kingdom was 
 borrowed, as heretofore observed, from the purer 
 days of the Jewish theocracy, when the Lord 
 their God was King of the people, and they 
 had no other ; so J ohn refers to the real theo- 
 cracy, the kingdom of heaven in the spirit, when 
 other lords shall have no more dominion over us, 
 but God shall be all in all. 
 
 There is a kingdom of heaven now in the 
 world ; but for the two little tribes that follow the 
 spiritual house of David, there are the ten that 
 belong to Jeroboam. The moral census of the 
 world, still, as it ever did, exhibits but a- little 
 flock, a poor minority, on the side of Zion. But 
 this melancholy state of things is not to be 
 always so, nor is so destined to be long, for 
 " Ethiopia," says the Psalmist, " shall soon 
 stretch forth her hands unto God ;" the real All- 
 hail King, who shall live for ever, is to set up, 
 
147 
 
 an image, — " the brightness of the Father's 
 glory, the express image of his person," — an 
 image, universal as the deluge, and higher than 
 the scale of Babel, before which, " all peo^ile, 
 nations, and languages, shall fall down and 
 worship." All shall know him, from the least 
 even unto the greatest; and in the millennial 
 dispensation, without respect of persons, or 
 revealed exceptions, all shall become new crea- 
 tures, fitted for " the new heavens and the 
 new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness," and 
 the true theocracy shall be restored, when "He 
 that sitteth upon the throne" shall make " all 
 things new," and " at the name of Jesus" — 
 (a name by which, in that day, men shall delight 
 to be called) — " every knee shall bow, and every 
 tongue confess, that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the 
 glory of God the Father !" But even in that 
 blessed state of things, so far as we know, there 
 will still be labour and rest, sorrow and joy, pain 
 and pleasure, life and death. It will be, in a more 
 eminent degree than ever known on this side 
 eternity, heaven begun below, but not heaven 
 itself. There will be, it would seem, the full 
 universal exercise of the means of grace, but not 
 the full consummation of the hope of glory. 
 h2 
 
148 
 
 It will be a dispensation of the excellent glory, 
 but not the perfect fruition of the same glory. 
 We are not, then, about to dwell upon the sab- 
 bath as a type of the millennium, (would that the 
 better observance of the sabbath warranted our 
 calling it the weekly millennium, the seventh 
 day's personal reign of Jesus in every heart!") 
 our subject is the sabbath, as the institution was 
 intended to be, and as it might be, the type of 
 heaven. To all who faithfully observe it, it is 
 such a type, and they have felt, and remarked it 
 to be so. 
 
 1. As a day of rest from labour, and of ex- 
 clusive devotion to the contemplation of heavenly 
 themes, it is a pleasant figure of the rest that 
 remaincth for the people of God. A rest to 
 be employed, and the active energies of the 
 soul will find abundant employment, in the pure 
 and undivided contemplation of the glory and 
 enjoyment of God's presence, and celebration of 
 his praises throughout eternity. The sacrifice 
 of praise will be the only sacrifice to be offered 
 in heaven. 
 
 2. The sabbath in connexion with public 
 worship, in bringing all classes of society toge- 
 ther in a moral equality bejoie God, is a type 
 
149 
 
 of ihat assembly, where the rich and poor meet 
 together, for the Lord is the maker of them all." 
 
 Here the sabbath, like its Divine Author, 
 " putteth down the mighty from their seats, and 
 exalteth the humble and meek." Here, as there, 
 will be no distinctions, except in the degrees of 
 holiness ; and though one star shall differ from 
 another in glory, all shall be stars of light. But in 
 this sabbath-house, the sinner and the saint may 
 be mingled together round the same altar, and 
 man, who cannot read the secrets of the bosom, 
 is unable to distinguish them ; but not so in the 
 sabbath above. There will be a great day of 
 separation between the righteous and the wicked ; 
 they must meet but once more after this taber- 
 nacle be dissolved, and that in the presence of 
 the Judge, and then the distinctions between sin 
 and holiness will be fixed in the great inter- 
 vening gulf, to widen and endure eternally. 
 Men may separate at the doors of this tabernacle, 
 and meet here again; but the parting at the gates 
 of heaven will be for ever. 
 
 3. The sabbath, in connexion with that gene- 
 ral difference and decency of apparel, and 
 cleanliness of person, which pervades all classes, 
 is a type of that heaven, where the worshippers 
 
150 
 
 shall be " clothed upon with salvation^' and 
 where our ^' vile bodies shall be fashioned like 
 unto His glorious body," who shall " subdue all 
 things to himself." 
 
 The influence of decent clothing upon the 
 softness of manners, and of a serious and respect- 
 able assembly, as at church, upon the solemnity 
 of feeling, cannot fail to have been acknowledged 
 by all persons. It is a prominent excellency 
 among the many uses of the sabbath. Here 
 there is time, place, and occupation, all conspiring 
 to invest the assembly with an air of seriousness 
 and devotion. Thus also, though in an infinitely 
 higher degree, shall all the glorious array, high 
 pomp and circumstance of heaven, combine to 
 quicken the rapture of the saints in light. 
 
 4. The sabbath, as a day of the communion 
 of saints in the body, and in connexion with the 
 promise of the more immediate presence of God 
 in the midst of them, presents a lively emblem 
 of that more blessed communio?i of the spirits of 
 just men made perfect before the throne, where 
 Jesus sits at God's right hand. 
 
 It is a type of that place where the true 
 Sheckinah sits between the everlasting cherubim, 
 and the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the 
 
151 
 
 temple of it ;" which brings us to the investi- 
 gation of the meaning of our text : — " And I saw 
 no temple therein : for the Lord God Almighty 
 and the Lamb are the temple of it." It is the 
 apostle's vision of heaven. Our discourse will be 
 to attempt an inquiry into the meaning of there 
 being no temple in heaven. And may the strong 
 help and influence of the Holy Spirit accompany 
 the minister in speaking, and the people in hear- 
 ing, the word of life, that we may feel " it is 
 good to be here ! " 
 
 " I saw no temple therein." This does not 
 mean that heaven is a place without devotion — 
 a place of no worship ; on the contrary, every 
 portrait of heaven, sketched by the pencil of 
 inspiration, describes it as a place where worship 
 is the chief, the exclusive employment. Thus 
 the four-and-twenty elders are said to " sing a 
 new song ;" then they had sung other songs 
 which, in comparison of this, were old, yet this 
 song will be ever new. " Thou art worthy to 
 take the book, and to open the seals thereof : for 
 thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by 
 thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and 
 people, and nation ; and hast made us unto our 
 God kings and priests." The sacrifice of praise, 
 
152 
 
 as it is the only, so is it the perpetual offering of 
 heaven. " I saw no temple therein," evidently 
 means, then, that there w^ill be no particular part 
 or place of the heavenly kingdom favoured with 
 God's presence, above any other part. Thus, 
 then, as the city is said to have " no need of the 
 sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it, for the 
 glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the 
 light thereof ;" so has the heavenly Jerusalem no 
 need of " a temple therein," " for the Lord God 
 Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it." 
 
 In corroboration of this commentary, we ob- 
 serve — 
 
 1. A temple involves the idea of a place of 
 worship in distinction from other places. 
 
 Thus, the temple at Jerusalem was considered 
 a holy place, in distinction from other parts of 
 the city ; thus the city itself was accounted holy, 
 as containing the temple, above other parts of 
 the land ; and thus Judea, generally, as the 
 habitation of God's people, and more particularly 
 to us, as the scene of our Saviour's incarnation, 
 has been termed the Holy Land. It was, more- 
 over, unlawful to offer sacrifices in any other 
 place except in the temple. Now there are no 
 such distinctions in the heavenly world: the 
 
153 
 
 whole heaven is equally God's residence, equally 
 holy. If his glory once inhabited the temple 
 only, it there " inhabiteth eternity," fills all 
 space, and sanctifies all " the many mansions." 
 Worship belongs to all and every part of it ; 
 altogether it is itself a temple for ever open, and 
 full of worshippers, a temple whose altar is the 
 Lord himself, whose priests are the blessed con- 
 gregation, whose sabbath is eternity, whose 
 courts are infinite space, " whose walls are sal- 
 vation, and whose gates are praise." 
 
 2. A temple, besides the idea of a distinct 
 place, implies devotion to be a distinct part of 
 the employment of the community where it is 
 placed. 
 
 In the body, man has a thousand anxieties, 
 which distract his attention and divide his heart 
 from God. He is obliged to keep his religious 
 exercises as things apart from ordinary life, 
 having nothing in common with his usual routine 
 of existence. In this sense also " there is no 
 temple in heaven," for there is no variation or 
 shadow of turning ; no suspension of, or distinc- 
 tion in, the constant employment of the society 
 of heaven. Nothing to interrupt or impede the 
 sweet flow of devotional feeling, the innumerable 
 h3 
 
154 
 
 streams of glory roll on for ever into the river 
 of life, for ever fed and replenished from the 
 heavenly fountains ; there are no stagnations, 
 and no troubled waters in that land of promise, 
 " And there," says the apostle, " shall be no 
 more curse," — neither the curse of labour, nor the 
 curse of sorrow.— There by that river grows the 
 tree of life, but without the forbidden fruit, for 
 every ransomed soul that gains his entrance into 
 this paradise, is welcome " to put forth his hand 
 and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live 
 for ever:" — " and there shall be no more death ; 
 neither sorrow, nor crying; neither shall there 
 be any more pain ; for the former things are 
 passed away." There shall it be an endless, an 
 eternal sabbath, unconscious of a yesterday or 
 morrow; time will be a thought forgotten, still 
 in the same unvarying and invariable round of 
 heavenly rapture, thanks, and praise: " the gates 
 of it shall not be shut at all by day, for there 
 shall be no night there:" the true Joshua shall 
 command his sun to stand still upon it for ever. 
 
 3. A iemple invlvoes the idea of worship at 
 particular seasons of the year, and hours of 
 the day. 
 
 Thus, the temple of the former church had 
 
155 
 
 her annual Passover, the feast of Pentecost, and 
 the feast of Tabernacles : all which festivals 
 celebrated events peculiar only to the national 
 history of the Jews. Thus, there were the daily 
 hours of prayer alluded to in Acts iii, 1 , which 
 were the third, sixth, and ninth hours of the day, 
 corresponding to our nine, twelve, and three 
 o'clock. In this sense also " there is no temple 
 in heaven." There are no seasons ; there is no 
 clock to mete the passing of eternity. There are 
 no particular or private commemorations of 
 events in heaven. The one act of common 
 interest to all the heavenly hosts, " the redemp- 
 tion which is by Christ Jesus," forms the univer- 
 sal theme of praise, the subject of the " new 
 song" before referred to, which is never to grow 
 old. No matter what distinctions of tongue or 
 dispensation divided them below ; Jew and Gen- 
 tile are all one there, and together sing in hea- 
 venly harmony the " song of Moses, the servant 
 of God, and the song of the Lamb." The law 
 and the gospel are magnified together; justice 
 and love have both their glory, there more 
 especially and fully " mercy and truth are met 
 together; righteousness and peace have kissed 
 each other." 
 
156 
 
 Again : as we have before observed, there 
 can be in the realms of everlasting day — day 
 without morning, noon, or night, — day of end- 
 less and immutable meridian, — no consciousness 
 of periods, or notes of division. Thus the wor- 
 ship of the angels, which has no particular 
 locality, no distinct engagement, no peculiar com- 
 memoration, has likewise no special occasions or 
 appointments, — the sabbath which began on the 
 resurrection morning, so called morning, from the 
 analogy in the act of rising, to the natural period 
 of awakening out of sleep, — the sabbath which 
 then began, shall be like the risen spirits which 
 commence it, without another pause or change, 
 to endure for ever. Immortal spirits, incapable 
 of further sensation of fatigue or languishment, 
 will keep eternal sabbath, and with " the cheru- 
 bim and seraphim continually cry," Holy the 
 Father, holy the Son, and holy the Holy Ghost, 
 thrice holy " Lord God of sabaoth ; heaven 
 and earth are full — (God hasten the period when 
 they equally shall be !) — of the majesty of thy 
 glory." 
 
 4. A temple involves the idea of a priest, 
 or priests performing worship, on behalf of the 
 congregation. 
 
157 
 
 In this sense also there will be no temple in 
 heaven ! True we have now such a High-priest 
 who hath entered into heaven itself, now to 
 appear in the presence of God for us ; and what 
 a glorious yet wonderful thought it is! and where 
 is the parallel among the gods of the heathen, 
 that the God we worship should be our Priest, 
 not merely Priest and King, which has had simi- 
 litude among men, but Priest, and God, ever 
 living to make intercession for us ? So long as 
 the gospel dispensation endures, i. e. to the end 
 of the world, will he abide our advocate with 
 the Father; but when the judgment-day be 
 passed, and the mediatorial office be ceased, 
 then shall the great, the High-priest God, leave 
 his Father's throne no more, no longer intercede 
 on behalf of sinners, and for the saints it will 
 then be no longer necessary ; but he will take 
 the throne as the object of everlasting worship, 
 and instead of being Priest for the congregation, 
 to him shall the redeemed and glorified congre- 
 gation be " kings and priests fur ever." 
 
 In the body he was, by the influence of his 
 grace, their great High-priest, for without him 
 they had neither the power nor inclination to 
 worship ; but in the spirit they will possess both 
 
158 
 
 power and inclination to worship him in spirit 
 and in truth. There they will want and wait 
 for no mouth or minister, for all the blessed 
 congregation will be ministers themselves, all 
 united in the common and eternal priesthood, 
 without disorder of services, or confusion of 
 degrees, offering the unanimous sacrifice of ever- 
 lasting praise. The sabbaths here are solemnized 
 before the altar, and the priest alone serves at 
 the altar. This sabbath hereafter will be cele- 
 brated before the throne; and not the priests 
 only, but all the people of God, shall bring their 
 common sacrifice, bow down, and worship : all 
 shall equally behold the glory, and every face 
 partake of its reflected beams. 
 
 5. A temple involves the idea of a defined and 
 limited space. 
 
 In this sense there is no temple for His glory 
 whom " the heaven of heavens cannot con- 
 tain." In these temples below a few only 
 suffice to fill the space, and there can enter no 
 more; but in the world of spirits, though so 
 many have been called already, yet there is 
 room ! Just so the renewed heart, which has 
 been made " the temple of the Holy Ghost 
 within it," becomes possessed of boundless 
 
159 
 
 capacity for receiving the things of God, and 
 still for more and more grace, " yet there is 
 room." Wherever God is, there is no end, or 
 bound, or limitation; and thus, though vi^e 
 cannot describe the properties of the heavenly 
 world, we know it must be a world of infinity 
 in space, and of eternity in duration. 
 
 Right blessed will be the congregation ad- 
 mitted into this heavenly sabbath-house, where, 
 without let or liindrance, every eye shall see 
 the glory of God, every ear shall hear the psalms 
 of praise, and every angel spirit comprehend 
 and entertain the whole. 
 
 Once more. A temple involves the idea of u 
 material, and therefore a perishable, structure. 
 
 We shall not enter upon a speculative inquiry 
 into what kind of atmosphere the blessed spirits 
 breathe, or what manner of locality will be neces- 
 sary for the raised bodies of the resurrection-day. 
 If the knowledge and understanding of these mys- 
 teries had been necessary or profitable to us, 
 doubtless their history had formed a part of 
 revelation. We cannot define what the apostle 
 meant by a " spiritual body we know not of 
 what high degree of subtle refinement body or 
 matter is capable ; but we know " that things 
 
160 
 
 which are impossible wilh men, are possible with 
 God ;" and that he who by his Spirit prepared a 
 body of matter for the Lord Jesus, could, by 
 the same Spirit, raise from the scattered and 
 decomposed particles of the natural bodies of 
 men, " a spiritual body," incapable of further 
 waste or perishableness, to be a fit residence for 
 the immortal spirit. Neither can we say whether 
 a locality of a similar subtle and spiritualized 
 material will be prepared for the habitation of 
 these embodied spirits of the just; but this 
 we know, that of whatever nature be the king- 
 dom of heaven, it shall endure for ever. We 
 know, that if our earthly house of this tabernacle 
 be dissolved, we have another house not made 
 with hands, eternal in the heavens." 
 
 In the sense, then, of a passing and material 
 structure, there is " no temple in heaven," for 
 the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the 
 temple of it. What more could be desired than 
 God and the Lamb, the Deity and the sacrifice ? 
 Is this the temple of heaven ? This also is the 
 temple of the church ; this the temple in every 
 believer's heart; this the temple that must be 
 there, or ever he be admitted into that other 
 temple of the Lord God Almighty and the 
 
161 
 
 Lamb, eternal in the heavens. There are the 
 blessed ones, living stones in the house of God ; 
 nay more, living temples within the great 
 common temple of them all ; each a heaven in the 
 heaven of heavens, where each has his sabbath in 
 the sabbath of sabbaths, under the mild reign and 
 disposition of the everlasting Father and the 
 Prince of Peace ! Have they loved the sabbath 
 here ? Much more shall they call that blessed 
 sabbath hereafter " a delight, the holy of the 
 Lord, honourable." Oh ! for such a region where 
 the sabbath is eternal ; the congregation eternal; 
 the temple eternal ; the worship eternal ; and 
 " the God over all, blessed for evermore;" 
 Father, Son, and Holy Ghost — a Triune Eternal! 
 Brethren, are we walking the paths that lead 
 to this Eternal ? 
 
 In conclusion, a few reflections may be sug- 
 gested, to wind up the whole subject. 
 
 We have attempted, at the end of each suc- 
 ceeding discourse, such practical improvement of 
 that particular view of the sabbatic institution 
 which then engaged our attention, so that there 
 will be no necessity for a recapitulation. From 
 the consideration of a sabbath being the sole 
 employment of heaven, we observe — 
 
162 
 
 1. They who have no taste for the sabbath 
 here, which comes but rarely, and its visits so 
 short, how can they have any relish, hope, or 
 anticipation, of that sabbath of heaven, which is 
 vithout intermission of days, eternal? 
 
 Alas for the man to whom tlie sabbath is a 
 weary day ! What would an endless sabbath be 
 to such an one ? Heaven itself would be a hell, 
 and the presence of God, deeper torment than 
 damnation. But let us reason the point with 
 the man to whom the sabbath is heaviness. 
 Why does he ever come to God's house at all? 
 Is not this act the admission of an opponent in 
 favour of his secret consciousness of his sense of 
 duty ? Is it not plain that such an one is in- 
 wardly, and more than he is perhaps aware of, 
 convinced of the necessity of sabbath-keeping 
 to his soul's salvation ? So surely, then, as judg- 
 ment will condemn abuse of privilege, so surely 
 will these sparing and unfrequent attendances at 
 the house of God; these secret misgivings of 
 conscience, rise up in judgment, arrayed against 
 the man who, having known so well, yet had 
 wilfully done so ill. There are those who make 
 their dislike of the minister an excuse for neglect- 
 ing the sabbath-house ; but God will remind 
 
163 
 
 them he did not require men to seek his house to 
 listen to the words of his servant, but to obey 
 the word of the Master. The proper object of 
 religious services is not to hear discourse from 
 the creature, but to offer up prayers to the 
 Creator. You come not here to look at a man, 
 but to worship God. True, the gift of " sound 
 speech, which cannot be condemned," is a talent 
 for which its possessor should thank God, and 
 pray for grace rightly to employ it in his service ; 
 but be it ever remembered, every gift is only to 
 be esteemed as a means, and as means only to 
 be admired in proportion to the usefulness they 
 discover in promoting the end of grace, i. e. the 
 conversion of sinners " out of darkness into 
 light, and from the power of Satan unto God." 
 Still, after all, prayer should be the bulk and 
 burthen of public worship, prayer in which all 
 may join, and thus all the congregation become, 
 in effect, priests unto God, and thus more nearly 
 assimilate these sabbath-days below to the 
 blessed sabbaths above. 
 
 Again. Perchance some of us attend the 
 house of prayer from fashion or habit, or for the 
 purpose of setting an example ; or some from 
 still less worthy motives, to acquire " a good 
 
164 
 
 report from them which are without." Fashion, 
 or habit, or good example, or fair report, will 
 not each, or altogether, save the soul. To each 
 one of such attendants at God's house the sab- 
 bath service must needs be weary and unpro- 
 fitable, because they lack the only spirit that can 
 render the means of grace pleasant and satis- 
 fying to the mind, and that is, a humble faithful 
 desire to please God, and to seek salvation. 
 Where this desire is in the heart, religion cannot 
 fail of pleasing, for they come to God's house 
 not to please themselves but to please God; not 
 with any reference to the creature, but in pure 
 and undivided devotion to the Creator. Alas 
 for the man that would fain prostitute religion to 
 the furtherance of carnal objects, make God's 
 altar his stage, and God's praises the mask in 
 which to perform the character which his heart 
 neither loves, or knows, or deserves ! It will be 
 no masquerade on the day of judgment ; not only 
 faces, but all hearts also, shall be open "before 
 Him with whom we have to do." 
 
 2. What comfort to the pious worshipper 
 the sabbath, as a type of heaven, affords his 
 mind! 
 
 Sickness has sometimes prevented your 
 
165 
 
 enjoyment of your weekly sabbath here; 
 there will be no more pain to interrupt 
 your happy observance of the eternal sabbath 
 hereafter. You have not profited equally on 
 every sabbath here ; there will be no differ- 
 ence in the constant edification and refresh- 
 ment of your spirits hereafter. Painful anxieties 
 of the flesh, touching your means of existence, 
 your children or your prospects, have some- 
 times robbed the comfort of your sabbaths 
 here ; there will be no wants, no gloomy antici- 
 pations, to molest you in your sabbath hei'eafter. 
 The death or dying hours of beloved kinsmen 
 have sometimes kept your wounded hearts from 
 the sanctuary here ; " there will be no more 
 death" or dying among your fellow-immortals to 
 cause an absence from the congregation here- 
 after. There is a feeling of melancholy steals 
 over the bosom when we look around this 
 tabernacle, and behold the vacant seats of those 
 that we once rejoiced to meet before God, but 
 who are now dead and gone, lying among the 
 silent congregation in the parish grave-yard; 
 but stay the tear, bereaved mourners, there is 
 another sabbath-house wherein ye shall all meet 
 again, and never miss a single other more, when 
 
166 
 
 ye shall " sit down with Abraham, with Isaac, 
 and with Jacob, in the kingdom of God." Satan 
 has often tried and sorely tempted you in the 
 midst of the congregation here, but he will 
 never reach you in the congregation hereafter ; 
 " for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb 
 are the temple of it." Oh, who can choose but 
 love the sabbath on earth, seeing it is a figure 
 of such a sweet sabbath in heaven ? who would 
 break a means of grace that led to such a hope 
 of glory? The sabbath possesses no small 
 interest in its retrospective view as a day of 
 commemoration of the creation, and, what was 
 greater, the redemption of man; but in no 
 point does it appear so lovely to the believer as 
 in its prospective view, as a type and earnest of 
 the blessedness of heaven. In the body the 
 believer on every sabbath is in a more eminent 
 degree " dead unto sin," and " buried with 
 Christ," and so will he wish to be, until that last, 
 that real resurrection-sabbath, when he shall rise 
 into " the sanctuary and true tabernacle which 
 the Lord pitched, and not man." 
 
 Lastly. After all that we have said in favour 
 of the sabbath, in this and in our previous dis- 
 courses ; of the grandeur and importance of 
 
167 
 
 the events it commemorates ; of its necessity, 
 as a day of rest to men as individuals ; of its 
 necessity, as a day of devotion, to the wants of 
 society, and to the existence of rehgion gene- 
 rally ; of its use, in perpetually reminding and 
 preparing us for another and a better state of 
 being ; after all these reflections, what has the 
 unbeliever to say against the sabbath ? Can 
 he show that the observance of a holy day does 
 not make men holier and happier ; does not im- 
 prove society ; is not necessary to man's present 
 and eternal welfare ? Alas ! there are many 
 kinds of folly in the world, but none so desperate 
 as that of infidelity ; whereof there are two 
 orders, the one an order of open theoretical 
 Sadducees, who " believe no resurrection, neither 
 angel or spirit ;" the other, and more numei'ous 
 order, practical Sadducees, in the professional 
 guise of believers, who hold both, yet live as if 
 they secretly believed in neither. To the first 
 party, the professed uncircumcised unbeliever, 
 be it observed, there is nothing which revelation 
 addresses to the mind wholesomely to humble 
 and abase its pride, so really degrading to hu- 
 manity, as the insult which the pride of infidel 
 reason oflfers to the soul, by slandering her origin. 
 
168 
 
 and denying her immortality. What a grovelling 
 spirit must possess that man's mind, whose only 
 hope is, by-and-by, to slink away into abstract 
 nothingness, to find a refuge in annihilation, and 
 let the once haughty reason yield the palm to 
 living instinct; nay, welcoming a condition infe- 
 rior to the meanest worm that crawls upon its 
 ashes, for surely any thing that lives has a point 
 of superiority over that which is dead. Shall 
 they smile at the superstition of religion? all 
 the superstitions of Pagandom never betrayed 
 such a folly as this. But we cannot enter now 
 into any exposure of the moral nakedness of 
 infidelity ; we simply observe, that so far from 
 injuring the cause of truth, it rather ministers to 
 her triumph, as the sublimity of wisdom shines 
 more apparently in the contrasted presence of 
 folly. The whole economy of Providence dis- 
 covers to us that effects must follow causes. 
 Every attribute of the soul in man suggests the 
 doctrine of her essential immortality. She is 
 placed here under circumstances of manifest trial 
 and preparation, and never has the soul yet died 
 that could conscientiously say, that its occupa- 
 tion had been competent to the capabilities of 
 the principle, or that it had ever yet arrived to 
 
169 
 
 its highest degree of perfect experience. The 
 soul, like time, never retrogrades, but is in the 
 perpetual pursuit after a future ; its prospects are 
 always on the hereafter; touching its own 
 longings and aspirations, it is already in eternity. 
 What, then, is to follow this rich layer of moral 
 causes but some corresponding effect ? Are all 
 these high anticipations of the future to be 
 levelled in the dust, and answered in the 
 silence of the tomb ? Is there any thing in the 
 animal man to suggest these nobly glowing 
 aspirations ? Are they not manifestly of Divine 
 original and source? Let, then, " the dust 
 return to the earth as it was ; the spirit shall 
 return to God who gave it." He " breathed into 
 our nostrils the breath of life." The breath of 
 heaven was not wasted on the brute that dieth, 
 it must be breathed back again into the bosom 
 of God. Then welcome, thou eternal future, 
 high recompense of present trial ! welcome, sweet 
 balm of immortality, that alone canst heal the 
 wounds which Time, with all her devices, cannot 
 cure ! Alas ! for the poor mind that lives only 
 for the day, taking no thought for that unknown 
 morrow, that for all of us shall begin a sure 
 eternity. 
 
 I 
 
170 
 
 On the other hand, to the practical atheists, 
 whose hps may profess the faith, but whose 
 hearts are " without God, and without hope in 
 the world," be it seriously observed to you, you 
 are even in worse case than the professed unbe- 
 liever ; his evil life is at least consistent with his 
 evil doctrines, but your lives give the lie to your 
 professions. Moreover, you are dangerous 
 stumbling-blocks in the way of your weaker 
 brethren, and you give great, I had almost said 
 just, "occasion to the enemies of God to blas- 
 pheme." The foolish and worldly friends of 
 the gospel are its most pernicious enemies — 
 enemies in the camp, and enemies of its own 
 household ; but they are also the direst enemies 
 to themselves. If the blind man knew there 
 was a pit-fall at the end of the road he was 
 travelling, yet continued walking therein till 
 he fell, would it not be an act of suicide? 
 There are men that walk wilfully blindfold to 
 hell, knowing at every step they take how much 
 nearer they are to condemnation. They know 
 their disease, and know the only remedy ; if they 
 persist therein, still forbearing to swallow the 
 healing medicine, trifling with it on their lips 
 till death dash away the cup, who will be to 
 
171 
 
 blame? surely not the good Physician, who 
 offered his balm without money and without 
 price ! 
 
 There are none of us who will have to lay 
 any blame upon God, for want of sufficient 
 grace and privilege; God grant that we may 
 here have abundant opportunity, and hereafter 
 eternal causej to praise him for our profitable use 
 of all his gracious ordinances, and especially for 
 that of his holy sabbath, the weekly monitor 
 and type of heaven ! 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 R. CLAV, PRINTEll, BI<E AD-STREET-HILL.