Spirit, is indispensable to the right discharge of these important duties. If we can do nothing aright without prayer, much less can we sustain a course of obedience, with love and delight, in the consecration of the Sabbath, without the continual supplies of grace and strength. But these supplies will not be refused to us. Our sins and defects will be forgiven us through the blood of Christ; our infirmities succoured by the power of the Holy Ghost. Thus will our Sabbaths pour into our hearts the consolation of the promises; and at length terminate in God himself, who first instituted the day, and who is its highest consummation and end.

II. Remark THE CONVICTION WHICH SUCH A DISCUSSION SHOULD FIX IN THE MINDS OF THE IRRELI

GIOUS AND UNCONVERTED. At what a distance are they from the true spirit and temper of the servants of God! They dispute against the divine authority of the Lord's day. They complain of the various duties we enjoin. They declare the impossibility of rising up to such a tone of piety. They invent excuses for absence and omission. But what do they in fact admit in all this, but their want of religious taste and feeling? What do they avow, but the want of spiritual judgment, pleasures, pursuits? The more they argue against the Sabbath, the more they condemn themselves. The further they recede from devotional habits and delights, the greater distance do they place between themselves and God.

Yes, let such be induced to consider their own ways and turn to the Lord. Let them weigh the authority, and remember the duties of God's blessed day; and let them seek that fundamental change of heart which will render the devotions of the day a pleasure, its duties a choice, its proper exercises the spontaneous overflowing of gratitude and love. Then would these Sabbaths be the NUNDINE SPIRITUALES, the "spiritual market-days" to their souls; then would they be as anxious to carry away COMMEATUM ANIMÆ, the provision for the mind, for reforming the will, for regulating the affections, for illumi

nating the understanding, as they are careful to carry away provision for the body from the markets whither they resort. 1

But what can we say as to the spiritual state of those multitudes, who still continue to have little or no conscience about hallowing God's blessed day? Where shall we place them? Under what class are they to be arranged? Where is the indolent and sensual Sabbathkeeper, or rather Sabbath-violator to be placed, who rests only as his ox, or his ass, or his cattle? Where is the pleasure-taking Sabbath-breaker to be arranged? Where the gluttonous and wine-bibbing? Where the busy, mercantile, or professional Sabbath-breaker, who thinks that the hurries of his concerns excuse him from the worship of God? Where is the formalist's Sabbath, whose heart remains behind, when his person and his lips seem to approach his Maker and Redeemer? And what shall we say to the infidel's Sabbath, the scoffer's Sabbath, the debauchee's Sabbath? Alas! the heart turns sick at the fearful guilt of the numbers, who, with knowledge, and opportunities, and means of sanctifying the day of grace, abuse, neglect, despise, violate it. Let such awake, ere it be too late, to their immense loss, as well as to their heavy criminality before Almighty God.

2

Shall God, my fellow sinner, have consecrated a day from the creation of man, and wilt thou stand out against his gracious command? Shall God have republished his will in the fourth commandment of the decalogueshall he have enforced it by all the motives of his righteous authority-shall he have poured around it all the milder glories of the new covenant, as well as the tremendous judgments of the old, and wilt thou not give God his due ? Wilt thou not yield him the just rent which he demands upon the gift of thy time, thy health, thy property, thy six days' labour? Wilt thou remain in

1 Bishop Andrews.

2 Bishop Andrews speaks wittily of the Sabbatum asinorumSabbatum aurei vituli-Sabbatum Satana-Sabbatum Tyri; the Sabbath of Asses-of the Golden Calf-of Satan-of the men of Tyre.

sensible to thine eternal interest, thy present and future happiness, the preparation thou needest for death and judgment? O, consider thy ways, seek thy Saviour's forgiveness, be ashamed and confounded for thy past neglect. Begin a new life. Enter upon a new course. Seek that holy taste and divine principle of life which will make the Christian Sabbath natural, interesting, pleasant, delightful, necessary.

Take at least the preparatory steps. If you cannot enter into all the enjoyments of the Sabbath, enter into some of them. By degrees new and better habits will be formed. By degrees the whole compass of sabbatical duties will become easy. Only begin in the strength of God, and relying on the operations of his grace. Take a view first of the great end of the institution, the sanctification of the soul. Then follow out the different classes of duties which spring from it, as branches from the parent stock. Next seek for something of the spiritual taste which forms the Christian temper. And lastly, let the grand blessings of creation and redemption, and the hope of heaven, be in some degree the topics of your praise.

SERMON VI.

THE UNSPEAKABLE IMPORTANCE OF THE RIGHT OBSERVATION OF THE SABBATH, WITH THE EVILS OF THE OPPOSITE ABUSE.

ISAIAH lviii. 1, 2.

Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteously and forsook not the ordinances of their God; they ask of me the ordinances of justice, they take delight in approaching to God.

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DOCTRINE is not enough, precept is not enough, on such a subject as that which we have been treating. We must address the conscience; we must be bold in our appeals to the heart of man-we must assert all the authority and majesty of truth. The minister of religion must not shrink from his task on such a question; must " cry aloud, and spare not; he must show" the people of God "their transgressions, and the house of Jacob," the professed church of Christ, "their sins." He must penetrate the thin disguises which a false religion assumes, and tear off the mask which a pretence of "seeking God and of delighting in his ways" may present and must declare that the external advantages

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and opportunities of religion only increase the guilt of the nation which tramples on that very day, when all these benefits would have their best effect.

We proceed, therefore, to set before you THE UN

SPEAKABLE IMPORTANCE OF A RIGHT OBSERVATION OF THE LORD'S DAY, WITH THE EVILS OF THE OPPOSITE ABUSE-a subject difficult to treat from its very magnitude, from the multitude of topics which it embraces, and from the little perception men in general have of the sin of neglecting and dishonouring God's most ancient institution.

For this may be premised; that the corruption of man, which resists generally all the great doctrines and duties of Christianity, may be expected to press with peculiar violence against a barrier, which, like the Lord's day, is raised against the whole current of that corruption.

Nor is it unimportant to add, that an institution like this, which takes men off from their ordinary pursuits and gives them an interval for religious rest and public worship of Almighty God, must, if abused, become, from the very nature of the case, a source of unnumbered vices and disorders; must draw into itself torrents of those particular evils, which are ever ready to accumulate, as in a common receptacle, where space is given. There is no middle state here-the influence of the Sabbath for good or for evil, upon nations, churches, families, individuals, is incalculable. It is meant to be the best and holiest day of the week; but, if perverted, it becomes the worst and most destructive.

But how shall we impress you most deeply with this subject? 1. Shall we show you that a due regard to the institution by a Christian nation is of the nature of a sacred compact? 2. That it is essential to man's temporal and spiritual welfare, as a fallen but accountable creature? 3. That it includes all the application of the Christian religion, and, in fact, its preservation in the world? 4. That it binds together all the links and obligations of civil society? 5. That it immediately respects the authority and honour of Almighty God, and