providing that it shall be so to his servants also that unnecessary labour shall not then be required of them - that they shall not, as on other days, be engaged with equipage which is needed only for display, or entertainments made only to exhibit splendour: but that they, as well as himself, shall have a fixed interval of worldly occupation, to devote to the worship of God, and the study of his Word. Every Christian inhabiting a Christian country is responsible for making his light shine before men, by the means God has himself ordained; - by joining his brother Christians in open profession of faith, and public worship of God, on that day of holy rest, which God has appointed for that very purpose,-to be a sign between him and his people, and to keep up a knowledge and remembrance of him throughout all the days of our lives. Consider, my brethren, that the very object of this commandment is to keep alive the remembrance of God in the

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minds of men. Consider, that those who have least knowledge of God, and are least careful to obey him, are the very beings who have most need of this commandment's application. Consider from what mercies you exclude them, if, in miserable selfishness, you take care only to preserve the memory of God in your own minds, and grant no opportunity of its obtaining a place in theirs. Consider that this will not be to obey the command, but to thwart and counteract it. To observe the day of rest, and attend public worship yourselves, and so to employ your family or domestics, as that they cannot do the same, is, as it were, to set forth the memorial of the Al

mighty, and at the same time to shut it up and hide it-to renew the remembrance of him by keeping a Sabbath holy, and to blot out the remembrance of him, by not suffering others to do the same-to blow hot and cold with the same breath-to do something to fill the kingdom of God, at the very

moment that you are doing much to withdraw its servants, and keep it empty of faithful subjects.

As it is, there are too many, who slight, or omit the services of devotion. But if it were left to every man to worship God at any time, when he willed, and only when he willed, many more would find pretence to defer and postpone the duty, until they altogether neglected it. If, again, it were left to every man to worship God in private only, those who did discharge the duty, would be doing nothing thereby to maintain a recollection of him among those who did not. And so, even if a few Christians did preserve their faith inviolate, the bulk of the population, the mass of mankind, prone as all are to regard what is present to the senses, and forget what is absent, must inevitably sink into the grossest darkness and ignorance of God. They would be acquainted with no religious profession; their memory would be enlivened by no recurrent services of

heaven; their hard hearts would be subdued by no holy influence of prayer; their souls would be touched with no affection, but unmitigated and debasing worldliness.

So necessary to a general existence of religion is the public worship of God. But there can be no public worship without a determined and stated season, which the public shall by common consent devote to the purposes of devotion. Men cannot meet together in congregations without a day and an hour appointed for meeting. And that day, and that hour cannot be a day or an hour of religion to mankind, unless the ordinary pursuits of life are broken in upon, and leisure given for exercises of devotion and piety. Nay! a man cannot turn so readily from the service of Mammon to that of God. It is not enough to have an hour of prayer. The ledger or the rent-roll of a morning will leave little disposition for the prayer-book and Bible at noon. The whole day is often

found inadequate to the task of shaking off the thoughts of the day before: and the pillow of the Sabbath morning, and the hassock of the Sabbath devotions, is haunted by the images of worldly interests and pursuits, that yesterday occupied the heart and meditations. So hard is it to take off our thoughts from the things of sense that are before us, and fix them on the things of faith that are in another world.

Yet, if any thing could withdraw us from the cares and pursuits of present life, the stillness and repose of a wellobserved Sabbath, the general cessation from labour, and the solemn services of the sanctuary, would seem calculated to engage and wrap up our whole souls in the concerns and aspirations of a life to When the Word of God is read and preached by the minister ordained to that very service, as an ambassador of Christ-when the united breath of a whole Christian congregation, in one common prayer, confesses their common sins,

come.