tianity-it goes to turn religion from a practical, holy, blessed principle, into a form, a name, a pretence.

And this it becomes, as the abuse of the day of God prevails. The ground on which we press the immense importance of the Sabbath, is from the evils which the violation of it occasions. Sabbath-breaking not only annuls the sacred compact of Christian nations, not only opposes the temporal and spiritual welfare of man, as a feeble but accountable being; but prevents all the application of Christianity in its blessings to the human heart. The separate instances of infringing the law of the Sabbath, may appear of little moment. We see not the interior process of the evil--the outward garb of decent morals is not at once thrown off. But look at the sure result. What is the Sabbath-breaker about? Is he reading his Bible?—He never opens that book which condemns his sin. Does he attend the ministry of God's word?--He dislikes more and more its admonitions, its calls to repentance. As his violation of the Sabbath increases, his disposition to attend the public preaching of the gospel lessens, his resolutions of returning to it become weaker, his regard for Christianity itself gradually expires. Does he join in public or domestic prayer?-Alas! he has left off the devout practice since the Sabbath has been broken. When he began the occasional neglect, first of a part, and then of the whole of that sacred day, prayer was not altogether forgotten. Some private devotions lingered amongst his habits--education and conscience had not wholly lost their force. But the evil acquired strength. The Sunday was first wearisome, then disgusting, then perverted to occasional, and lastly to continued, indulgences of a secular kind-and with this, prayer was renounced, forgotten. And what has the Sabbath-breaker to do with the sacrament, or with the religious education of the young, and the poor and ignorant? He may promote the pride of intellectual knowledge, he may diffuse a literature tinged with infidelity, he may nourish the daring spirit of inquiry which a false philosophy proclaims; but the solid, religious, useful education of the young and ignorant in their immortal destinies, in their accountableness to God, in their duties to their Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier, he utterly neglects and opposes. In short, if the real want of religious character in the violator

of God's holy day could be estimated, it would be found to be just in the proportion as that institution was forsaken.

Nor is it too much to say, startling as it may sound in some ears, that the existence of Christianity in the world depends upon the observation of the Sabbath. Let this visible pledge of allegiance be withdrawn, let this sacred time be filled up by the cares and follies of the world, let public prayer and sacraments, public preaching of God's word and instruction of the ignorant be neglected and virtually renounced-and where is Christianity, where its hold upon man, where its means of operation, where its healing influence, where its application to the heart? Yes; God has bound every thing together. In appointing a Sabbath, he has not instituted a useless, secondary, non-essential rite. The SABBATH WAS MADE FOR MAN-for such a creature as he is-in such a system of means, and with such a revelation as Christianity proposes to him. The same God that knew what was in that Revelation, and what was also in man, ordained the holy Sabbath as the accompanying means of the whole scheme of redemption— as the field in which all its blessings might be sown as the scaffolding, by the aid of which all the building might be erected. The institution is nothing indeed if left in theory, nothing if abused to wrong ends, nothing if relied on with pride, or frittered away by superstition; but every thing if used for its proper purposes, every thing if practically employed, every thing if animated and blessed with the presence and power of God. But this is not all.

IV. So important is the Lord's day, that it connects and holds together ALL THE LINKS AND OBLIGATIONS OF HUMAN SOCIETY, which the violation of it tends to destroy. Government cannot subsist without religion.The institution which sustains Christianity, sustains those duties and habits, those virtues of the heart, that mildness and humanity, that regard to truth and the sanctity of an oath, that sense of conscience and prospect of the tribunal of Christ, which strengthens human authority, preserves the peace of communities and nations, and is the bond of human society. The Sabbath recals all these great principles, impresses them anew when effaced, urges them when neglected, deepens them more and more, and preserves them in activity upon the heart. If the Sabbath be lost,

man is selfish, proud, discontented, disloyal, turbulent. His conscience becomes hardened, his passions restless, his submission to human authority reluctant. If the Sabbath be duly observed, God governs the moral and intellectual being, the law of God sustains the just rule of man, the grace and mercy of God in Jesus Christ attract the weary sinner, the obligations of conscience are vigorous and effectual, peace reigns within the breast, and willing subjection to authority as the ordinance of God, follows. Civil society is contained and held together by the Sabbath: which gives firmness and consistency to all the intercourse of man with man, to all the engagements which cement honorable commerce and the affairs of a peaceful agriculture, to all the current opinions and feelings which form the standard of morals.

The law of the Sabbath also unites all the classes of men one with another, by teaching them their common origin, their common guilt, their common mercies, their common duties. It places them before an Almighty Judge, and shrivels into insignificance the petty distinctions of rank and wealth, in the view of the eternal and all-glorious Potentate. To meet in one common temple, before one common Savior, to supplicate one and the same salvation, sheds a humanizing, softening influence, gives a common sympathy, excites the feelings of brotherhood and intercommunity.

The Sabbath tends to humble man, and thus dispose him to all the duties of social and public life. The obstacles it removes. The pride and self-sufficiency of man it abates. It lays the foundation of lowliness, suavity of temper, forgiveness of injuries. It promotes a courteous, obliging carriage. "The rich and the poor meet together, the Lord is the maker of them all." The Sabbath annihilates human vanity, teaches that God is no respecter of persons, exalts those of low degree. The Sabbath humanizes man by the very neatness and cleanliness and frugality which it diffuses. Its good order, decency, and comfort, elevate the moral character. Its mildness and calmness of devotion engender self-respect, in a proper sense of the word. Its doctrines and duties and sacraments and prayers subdue the ruder feelings, awaken the humane and tender associations, expel the ruffian-passions, relieve the servant, the child, the de

pendant, from the oppression of the austere master, and compose and mollify the intercourse of the world.

Take the opposite abuses, and tell me what vices and outrages are not committed upon the Sabbath, when it is dishonored and violated. Of those who are executed as victims to the infraction of the laws of their country, the greater part date their ruin from the flagrant breaches of this sacred day. Of the hideous and fearful sins of impurity and licentiousness, the Sabbath is the season. Of the degrading habits of drunkenness, the Sabbath is the period, the spot, the occasion. Schemes of rapine and dishonesty, are almost all planned in the abused hours of the Lord's day. The first steps are perhaps not discernible. An occasional neglect of the ordinances of religion brings no instant profligacy of principle. Society is secure. But the tendency soon appears. The moral sense is loosened. The fear of God, like a barrier, being removed, the torrent of passion and concupiscence pours out of itself. The danger is augmented from the concealed labyrinths of the process. Should a loose companion say to a sober, religious youth, on the morning of the Christian Sabbath, "Go with me to-day, ruin your health, destroy your reputation, lose your money, kill your aged parents with grief, be a companion of prostitutes, rob your master, break the laws of your country, scorn God, be executed as a criminal, and plunge in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone"-certainly the undebauched youth would tremble and flee. But the tempter conceals all this; he only says, "Do not go to church to-day, spend the day with me;"-all the rest follows of course:-"the companion of fools shall be destroyed." The Sabbath-breaker is in truth prepared for every enormity, and every crime. He is a bold transgressor; he practically denies God's right to be worshipped, honored, reverenced, obeyed. He says, God is not an object of admiration, fear, gratitude, love. He that thus contemns God, has no regard for man. Society is not safe with him. He may be restrained from crime by selfish motives; he is not restrained by conscience and religious ones.

Cast an eye on any one Lord's day in our great towns, and especially in our metropolis. Follow the Sabbathbreakers through the day. Class them. Tell me who

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they are. Count up their actions during the course of the sacred hours. Penetrate their secret chamber. See the influence of their doings on the subsequent week. Society totters under their crimes. Observe the families, the establishments for merchandize, the offices, the posts of public responsibility which they fill--and trace the crimes, the outrages, the neglects, the falsehoods, the subterfuges, the nefarious and dark designs which the profanation of the Lord's day has engendered or matured-Yes, you have VICE in all its forms and enormities, in the one sin of Sabbath-breaking.

But the consideration is too painful. I hasten to point out, in the last place,

V. That the observation of the Sabbath immediately HONORS ALMIGHTY GOD, AND BRINGS HIS FAVOR AND BLESSING upon a people; whilst the profanation of it provokes his highest displeasure.

For the Sabbath is God's day; it is the Lord's tribute; it is the acknowledgment which he requires for all his blessings, temporal and spiritual; it is the mark of regard and reverence which he demands from man. What, then, can

so immediately touch his honor as the wilful profanation of this institution? It precisely demonstrates man's contempt and ingratitude, his pride and secularity, his secret enmity against the government, and dislike of the worship of his God.

The easier the observance of it is, the more grievous insult to the majesty of heaven is its violation. The greater the benefit which it is calculated to confer upon man, both in body and soul, the more perverse and unreasonable is his disobedience.

The clearer, again, the light of that dispensation of the gospel under which he lives, the deeper becomes that moral criminality which the sin against so much light brings with it. The more free from false doctrines our creed and the more favorable our position for a distinct view of our duty, the higher presumption is involved in our neglect of it.

It is not possible for the mind of man to measure the dimensions of that guilt, which the deliberate profanation of the Lord's day under the gospel dispensation, in a free protestant country, involves.