ful season of repose than in the preceding ages. The worship of the New Testament will be, we may conclude, a restoration of the patriarchal in its primitive simplicity and purity, dropping the incumbrances imposed during the time of the law, and acquiring all the new influence and obligations which the infinite benefits of the gospel confer.

And thus, as the patriarchal SACRIFICES passed on into the PASSOVER and numerous offerings of the law during the term of that intervening dispensation, and then emerged in the simple evangelical SUPPER of our Lord— as again the patriarchal CIRCUMCISION reserved its rites during the same economy, and then yelded to the sacrament of BAPTISM-and as the patriarchal institution of MARRIAGE, suspended on account of the hardness of the people's hearts during the Jewish age, was re-established and came to its full effect in the Christian law of marriage, -so the PATRIARCHAL DAY OF REST, with its worship of God, its celebration of the wonders of creation, and its provision for the religious repose of man, after having been annexed for a period to the national covenant of the Jews, was restored to its FIRST DESIGN IN THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH.

A re-enactment in the New Testament would be a denial, by implication, of its previous institution and authority. Nothing is enacted in the gospel without a necessity. The baptism of infants is not expressly enjoined; the law of circumcision having sufficiently provided for it. The moral law, the essential duties of religion, the relations of man to his Maker and Benefactor, the necessity of a season for divine worship, the proportion of time destined for it from the creation, all the precepts of the decalogue-remain unchanged. They are taken for granted under the gospel. They are not again formally promulgated. Creation and Mount Sinai suffice. They go on of course, and the Sabbath with them, if no express and formal abrogation intervene.

But we are anticipating our next discourse. Our object is merely to bring up the law of the sabbatical rest

to the threshhold of the New Testament, and to leave it there, ready to enter.

Let us then turn from these discussions to some practical points which may affect our hearts.

1. Let us learn to give to the holy day of rest that PROMINENCY IN OUR ESTEEM which Moses was instructed to give it in his dispensation. Christian brethren, let the gospel be as influential upon us to observe the day of rest and holy worship, as the Law was of old. Let not the Sabbath be sunk amidst external observances, ordinary rites, an outward adherence to a national creed, the common decencies of religion. Let it be exalted and placed aloft as the Queen of days. Let the admiration of the Jew, blind as it often was, be a stimulus to the more enlightened devotion of the Christian. Let the mercies of God in the redemption from the Egyptian captivity, which bound with additional motives the Sabbath upon the ancient people, teach us how the mercies of a spiritual redemption from sin and death should bind on us the sanctification of that day when they are especially celebrated. Let the perpetual inculcation of this duty by Moses, on all occasions, in every connexion, by every species of motive, lead us to urge it upon our children and households on every fit opportunity. Let the solemn promulgation of it in "The Ten Commandments" be the summary of all our arguments, and the brief and conclusive proof to us of the perpetuity of the institution.

II. And to this end, let us IMBIBE THE SPIRIT OF LOVE AND DELIGHT in the worship of God, which the Psalms and Prophets display. We never can imitate the earnestness of Moses, nor place the Sabbath on the prominency where he exhibits it, unless we join to it the holy David's love to God, and the sublime Isaiah's spiritual joy in his service. O, how much are our Sabbaths, practically speaking, below those of the saints of old ! How much is our repose of soul in God, our fainting of heart after his courts, our view of the happiness which religion communicates, inferior to the feelings which these holy men experienced! Let us pray, let us seek for such

a spiritual state of heart, for such a real choice and preference of God in Christ Jesus, and such a delight in the contemplation of his glory in creation, providence, and redemption, as may enlarge our hearts and "lift them up in the ways of the Lord;" as may render the Sabbath "a delight," as may surround it with the honour and esteem which are its due, and make "one day in God's courts better than a thousand." Then, then should we indeed sanctify our Sabbaths. Then would disputes soon cease. Then should we abstain naturally and with choice, from "doing our own ways, finding our own pleasure, or speaking our own words." And what, indeed, can the love of our Saviour Christ, and the grace of the Holy Spirit be said to have done for us, if they have not raised us out of the world, and united us with the spiritual church in religious adoration? This is the secret of true religion. It reigns by LOVE, it subdues by the sense of benefits, it calms and purifies the soul, it turns the current of the affections towards God, it pays cheerfully and with delight the tribute of one day in seven, as the Lord's portion and share out of man's time and efforts, and for the training and discipline of the soul for an eternity of worship in heaven.

III. But add to these motives THE AWFUL INDIGNATION of Almighty God against the contempt of his name and his day. Judge from the terrors of Mount Sinai and the denunciations of the prophets, what is the anger of the Lord against those who violate and pollute His Sabbaths. I would urge upon my own conscience, and that of others, the guilt of that weariness in the service of God, that sort of contempt and neglect of its spiritual benefits, that inward disgust for acts of piety and praise, that conceit and self-reliance and self-satisfaction, which are the true causes of our dislike for divine worship and religious repose. I would urge the criminality, the peculiar criminality, under the spiritual dispensation of the New Testament, of those sins which Moses and the prophets condemned with so much vehemence under the less perfect economy of the law. The ease and liberty of the gospel, and our freedom from the bond of

D

ceremonies, only augment the guilt of that enmity against the holy nature and blessed will of God, from which contempt of his worship springs. We have now no multiplied festivals to observe, no difficult and expensive offerings to prepare, no perpetual oblations to provide, no sabbatical years to observe. The simple and noble worship and repose of one day in seven is what God commands or rather grants as a boon-and only enjoins when we réfuse thus to receive it as a benefit.

Awaken, then, Christian brethren, from the torpor and lukewarmness which too much mark the age in which we live. A philosophic conceit, the pride of intellect, indifference to truth, a selfish calculating love of ease and indulgence, a blindness to the magnitude and dignity of the claims of our invisible Benefactorthese are our sins and these were the sins of the days of Ezekiel and Malachi under the old dispensation. And from these sins, a readiness to listen to objections against the Sabbath springs. Who would ever have endured the fiction of an anticipation in the narrative of the glorious work of creation, or of the Sabbath being a merely ceremonial rite, if an indifference and weariness for spiritual things had not predisposed the mind to seek any excuse for its worldliness and unconcern. But let us be aroused to real penitence. Let us view the guilt of contemning God in its true light. Let our hardness of heart, and pride of intellectual distinction, yield to the sweet influences of grace, and we shall honour God in the day which from the creation had been dedicated to him. The anomaly of a Christian loving God and undervaluing the day of God, has never yet been known. But further,

IV. Let us IMITATE THE HEROIC ZEAL of Ezra and Nehemiah in vindicating the sanctity of the Sabbath. Surely the Christian cannot hesitate as to his duty, after considering the conduct of these inspired men. Each should do what his talent and influence in society en

No man ever thought of anticipation in this place, who was not first anticipated with manifest prejudice, says an old writer.

join and permit. It is the principle upon which I insist. If we cannot absolutely shut the gates of our great cities to the entrance of merchandize, we may do something to lessen the evil. We may shut the door of our houses we may prohibit the purchase or reception of articles of consumption by our servants and dependants-we may encourage those upon whom we have any influence, to observe the sacred day. Let only the zeal, the courage, the firmness, the disinterestedness of Ezra and Nehemiah be connected with their piety and love to the house of their God, and much would be done. How have national revivals of religion been brought about in other times? In the days of Samuel, or in those of Hezekiah, Jehoshaphat or Josiah? The magistrates and ministers of religion took the lead. Men like Ezra and Nehemiah rose up with holy determination and simplicity. Public conscience and sentiment were addressed. Gross infractions of the day of rest were discouraged. Prayer was offered up at the throne of mercy. God answered the petition, and truth and holiness were again established.

V. I add only one more thought; that as the guilt of Sabbath-breaking and of idolatry were united of old in the practice of the people, and in the threatenings of the holy prophets, we should especially dread that

FALSE VIEW OF THE CHARACTER OF GOD AND OF THE

NATURE OF CHRISTIANITY which are generally associated with the violation of the Lord's day. To worship God aright, is to adore him in his perfections, in his manifestations of himself in his word, in his infinite right over man, in his holy law, in his eternal judgment, in the revelation of a way of salvation through the atonement of Christ and in the operations of the divine Spirit, in the communion with himself to which he admits the devout worshipper. All other worship is idolatry. It is the setting up, in fact, of idols in our heart. It is worshipping a God of our own imagination. Now mark the alliance of all this with the sin of neglecting and violating the holy Sabbath. We throw