And more especially should we speak with this decision in respect to so fundamental à fact as the entire scheme and glory of creation, the whole design and proportion of divine wisdom in the order of the six days' work, the primary distribution of time into its proportions for the use of man;-that first prodigious act, on which the subsequent parts of revelation hang for their consistency and force. And this disposed of by a mere assumption !—the fact transposed from the period of creation, to a distance of two or three thousand years, without an intimation in the narrative itself, against all the laws of interpretation, and to supply a necessity which, after all, is found not to exist! Such a conduct is portentous.

Let us cleave, then, to the foundation of all faith in the various other facts of revelation, by adhering to this; and let us cultivate more and more that humility, that submission of heart to God, that restraint of human curiosity and presumption, in which the essence of faith so much consists. It is the wrong state of heart which is the hot-bed where these pernicious notions are gene rated. Let the heart delight in the divine worship; let the heart meditate on the divine perfections in Christ Jesus with holy complacency; let the heart rejoice in God as its happiness, and such errors will not readily find entertainment. I vindicate the first Sabbath, that I may lead you to celebrate with more devotion every other. I resist with indignation the attempt to sap the institution of it in paradise, that I may lead you to a due contemplation of the glories of creation, as often as the day returns.

II. Yes, come with me, before we close this discourse, and LET US ADORE AND PRAISE THE ALMIGHTY FATHER OF ALL FOR THE DISTINCT GLORIES SHED UPON

the day of religious repose. Come and praise him for condescending to imprint its first enactment, and the reasons on which it is grounded, on the six days' creative wonders. I am persuaded, that the first Sabbath is not enough magnified. We are familiar with the tenor of

the simple and sublime narrative from our infancy. Our hearts are cold to devotion; objections poison our first feelings. Enter more into the dignity of that day, for the institution of which all days were formed. Imbibe the exalted spirit of that portion of time, to encircle and ennoble which all other portions took their place, as courtiers around the queen and mistress of days. No other command of God has the peculiarity of this; no other institution, no other service, no other ordinance of religion has, or can have, the majesty blazing around it, which illuminates the day of God. Come, glorify your God and Father. He bids you rest, but it is after his own example. He bids you labour, but it is after his pattern. Imitate the supreme Architect. Work in the order in which he worked, cease when he was pleased to cease. Let the day of religion, after each six day's toil, be to you a blessed and a sanctified season. Plead the

promise attached to the Sabbath it is blessed of God, it is sanctified of God, it is hallowed of God. Implore forgiveness of your past neglect. Let no Sabbath henceforth pass over you, without your having sought the blessings it promises, and performed the duties to which it is dedicated. Let your devout meditation on the glories of creation swell the choir of your Maker's praise. Join "the sons of God" in their joys and songs at the birth of the universe.' Adore the kindness and benevolence of the Almighty, in interposing one day's repose after every six, between the toil, and confusion, and passions, and secularity of this world's duties. Bless your Redeemer and Saviour for preserving some traces of this most ancient of institutions amidst the patriarchal ages, to remind us of our greater privileges, (as we shall see in the subsequent discourses,) now that we have the ten commandments again promulgating its divine obligation; the prophets enforcing its observance; the blessed Jesus vindicating its gracious simplicity; the Apostles and the universal church handing down to us its sacred obligations. Yes, let the brighter day of the gospel guide our

1 Job xxxviii. 17; Prov. viii, 23—31.

feet to that sacred season, which was first consecrated in paradise; which was then surrounded, for a time, with the garb of figurative observances; which was afterwards restored to its simple and original design by our Saviour; and which stands the pledge and foretaste of the heavenly state. Yes, the Sabbath stretches through all ages; affects all men in every period of time; distinguishes the true servants of God from the wicked, more than any other ordinance; upholds the visible profession of religion before the eyes of mankind; keeps up the face and aspect of Christianity in the world; is the most direct honour that a man can pay to the name and will of the ever-blessed God; and will never cease in its authority here, till our Sabbaths on earth give place to that eternal Sabbath of which they are the pledge, the preparation, the end.

SERMON II.

THE AUTHORITY AND DIGNITY OF THE SABBATH UNDER THE LAW OF MOSES.

EXODUS XX. 8—11.

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.

WE have proved that the Sabbath was instituted in paradise, by adhering simply to the inspired record. We have also silenced the objection raised on the supposed absence of any vestiges of its observance till the time of Moses. We come now to consider the position which it held under the ceremonial dispensation. And here the objection to its divine authority and obligation rests on its being merely a ceremonial and temporary appointment, which lost its force with the economy which gave it birth. This difficulty has already been virtually removed. For if the narration in the book of Genesis is correctly given; if the patriarchs cannot be proved to

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have neglected the divine command; and if at the deliverance from Egypt, Moses clearly referred to it as not effaced from the memory of the people; then the Sabbath did not owe its birth to the ceremonial law, and cannot have ceased by the abrogation of it. But this is little. As we not only answered the objection advanced against the patriarchal Sabbath, but triumphantly established its essential dignity and perpetuity from the glory cast upon it by the order of creation; so we hope, not merely to refute the present objection, but to draw from the law of Moses copious materials for confirming all our preceding arguments, and for placing in a yet stronger light the immutable obligation of the day of weekly rest.

We assert, then, I. that from the very commencement of the Mosaical economy, the fourth command was incorporated in the moral law; II. that when the ceremonial usages were in their greatest vigour, the Sabbath appeared high and distinct above them; and III. that in the latter ages of the Jewish church, it was insisted on by the prophets as of essential moral obligation, and as about to form a part of the gospel dispensation.

I. The insertion of the law of the Sabbath into the decalogue confirms all we have already advanced, and affords the most decisive proof of its perpetual force. If there were nothing else in the whole Bible, this would be enough to satisfy the humble Christian. The fourth commandment is just as binding as any of the remaining nine. There it is, a part of the moral law of God! If the attempt to feign an anticipated history was proved to be an invasion on the first principles of faith; the endeavour to displace the fourth commandment is AN OPEN INVASION OF THE FIRST PRINCIPLES BOTH OF FAITH AND OBEDIENCE. For every thing conspires to cast an importance around the ten commandments peculiar to themselves.

Consider the BROAD LINE OF DEMARCATION between them and the ceremonial usages. The decalogue is a summary of all those dictates of the love of God