to annihilate the blessings of revelation, to leave the world without any visible token of the authority of Christianity, and to strip the church of the means of openly testifying its faith and obedience. As to the mass of mankind, if the Sabbath be taken away from them, no time is left for religious duties, for the worship of Almighty God, domestic piety, the instruction of children, the visiting the sick and needy, the reading and hearing of the gospel, the celebration of the sacraments, the preparation for that rest of heaven of which it is the pledge and foretaste. And the remaining classes of society would never allot a time for those duties, which, if there were no Sabbath, would be left open; nor could they sustain the honour of religion in their families or the world.

Christianity is indeed represented and set forth in the weekly return of the day, when its most solemn services are performed. As real piety declines in any country, this symbol of it is forgotten or contemned; as Christianity revives, men awake again to the value of those means of grace, of which the Sabbath is the first in importance and dignity.

The divine authority of a weekly religious rest has ever been one of those primary truths in which the universal church has agreed. Its institution in paradise and its insertion in the moral law, have given it an authority on the consciences of men which nothing has shaken. Christian states have hitherto recognized it, and protected their subjects in the peaceable enjoyment of its repose. The disputes of controversialists have chiefly affected subordinate questions, and have left the divine authority undisturbed as an article of the general faith of Christendom. The neglect of its practical duties has, indeed, from the corruption of man, been but too common in every age; but open assaults upon the origin and continued obligation of the day itself, have been rare till of late years.

Now, however, the spirit of covert scepticism or lukewarm Christianity, has not spared this most ancient of institutions. Not content with impugning the separate doctrines and mysteries of Revelation, it makes bold to

call in question that sacred season when all those doctrines and mysteries are publicly recognized and inculcated. The platform and arena of religion is taken from under our feet-the great external distinction of the Christian faith is annihilated-and man, erring sinful man, is deprived of his day of repose and recollection, and turned adrift to learn Christianity and celebrate its rites, as chance may dictate and expediency persuade. And though most of the opponents of the divine authority of the Sabbath are ready at present to allow its importance, and are loud in their admiration of those public services which custom and the laws of Christian nations enjoin, yet the tendency of their writings is to sap the principle on which all this rests, to take men off from the firm footing of conscience and the command of God, and transfer them to the sandy ground of human recommendation and casual example.

The duty of the minister of the gospel, under such circumstances, is plain. He is bound to instruct the young with more care than usual, in the doctrine of the Holy Scriptures on this great question. He is bound to examine the more popular and mischievous objections. He is bound to state what real difficulties rest on the subordinate points of the inquiry. He is bound to assure the poor and simple in his flock, that they may rely on the grounds of their former faith. He is bound to recall the intelligent and elevated classes from the fatal course on which they are in danger of entering.

And in honestly attempting this, he may look for the blessing of Almighty God, who only permits his truth to be assailed in different ages, by different classes of error, in order to prove and try our faithfulness,-in order to carry on, in fact, that system of moral probation and discipline which he has been pleased to establish in this world, and which is apparent, not in this question only, but in every other connected with the evidences, the doctrines, and the precepts of Christianity. God has indeed left things so in the Bible, that his will is plain to the humble inquirer, but obscure

and difficult to the proud-that there is darkness enough on secondary matters and points not connected with our immediate duty, to be the occasion of excuse to the unwilling; whilst there is sufficient light to guide the sincere and docile.'

The

For it is to practice that the doctrine of revelation on this subject, as well as every other, tends. day of rest, not in its theory, or even its divine obligation, but in its holy duties and in its peculiar blessings, is the object which it has in view. And to this we shall direct all our attention, as soon as we have cleared our way through those arguments which are necessary as an introduction to practical exhortation. In this respect it is that the theory and doctrine of the Sabbath, its divine authority and perpetual obligation, are so important. They are wanted as a ground-work. When this is firmly laid, we raise our superstructure with safety.

The whole subject, then, divides itself into two parts —the divine AUTHORITY of a day of weekly religious rest—and THE MANNER in which that day should be observed under the Christian dispensation. The former question will occupy the first four sermons; the latter, the last three of the present series.

2

In the first division, we shall have to examine the foundation on which the duty rests, that is, the grounds we have for believing that a seventh portion of our time, now termed the Lord's Day and formerly the Sabbath, is required by Almighty God to be dedicated to his immediate service; and the nature of the objections raised by our opponents. In the second division we shall point out the practical duties of the Christian Sabbath, the unspeakable importance of observing them, the evils of the opposite neglect, and the necessity of personal and national repentance, if we would avert the Divine displeasure.

We enter, then, now on the first general branch of the

1 Butler's Analogy of Natural and Revealed Religion.
2 Sermons I. II. III. IV.

3 Sermons V. VI. VII.

whole question. Here the points which decidedly establish the divine authority and perpetual force of a weekly day of rest, are; 1. The institution of it in Paradise; 2. Its solemn insertion in the decalogue; 3. The position it holds under the Mosaic law; 4. The energy with which the prophets insist upon it as one of the primary and universal obligations of religion; 5. The transfer of it to the Lord's Day by the apostles, who were divinely directed to found the Christian faith, and its observance as such, by all the primitive Christian churches which were immediately instructed by them.

The chief difficulties which our adversaries oppose to these arguments, are; 1. That there are no vestiges, as they assert, of the observance of a Sabbath in the patriarchal ages-that therefore the narrative of its institution in the book of Genesis is by anticipation; 2. That it was not established, in fact, till the time of the ceremonial law, and then merely formed a part of that preparatory economy; 3. That we have no express command for the observation of it, or of any day in lieu of it, in the New Testament; 4. That our Lord repealed it by his doctrine and conduct, of which the change of the time of its celebration is, as they maintain, a sufficient proof; and that, finally, 5. The example of the apostles and the primitive Christians gives it only the force of a moral expediency, subject to the regulations of the Christian church, in each following age.

1. Our opponents

Such is the state of the question. proceed on the silence of Scripture during the patriarchal ages this we shall show to be an unsound argument; and shall prove that the Sabbath was instituted in Paradise and revived and re-established in the wilderness.' 2. Our opponents insist that it is a ceremonial appointment appended to the Mosaic dispensation: we shall show that it was inserted in the immutable law of the ten commandments before that dispensation began; that it was exalted during the course of the Mosaic economy above all merely typical institutions, and was enforced by the

1 Serm. I.

prophets as of universal obligation. 3. Our adversaries say there is no express command for it under the New Testament, whilst the doctrine and conduct of our Lord virtually repealed it: we shall show that no new statute was to have been expected; and that our Saviour honoured it on all occasions, only vindicating it from uncommanded austerities.2 4. Our opponents consider the change of the day as a proof of its abrogation: we shall maintain, that this was in itself a subordinate point; and took place upon the authority of the Lord of the Sabbath. 5. Finally, the example of the apostles is reduced by our adversaries to a mere commendation of the observance : we shall show it to have a divine obligation derived from the inspiration under which they acted.3

These topics will оссиру four sermons.

We shall in the present discourse confine ourselves to

THE ORIGINAL INSTITUTION OF A WEEKLY SABBATH IN PARADISE, AND ITS CONTINUED AUTHORITY TILL THE DELIVERY OF THE MORAL LAW.

Our text contains the history of "the first Sabbath." No sooner were the heavens and the earth finished, and Adam placed in the garden of Eden, than God blessed and set apart, as our text asserts, one day in seven for his own immediate service. He "who knew what was in man," and who had a right to all his obedience and love, was pleased to appoint that six portions of his time should be allowed him for his ordinary labour, and the seventh exclusively devoted to religious repose, and the exalted duties of communion with his Maker.

Every circumstance connected with this first institution is calculated to give us the highest idea of its essential and moral character. The whole controversy hinges here; for the universal obligation of the Sabbath is not disputed, if it be proved that it had its origin in paradise. And how men of gravity could ever persuade themselves

1 Sermon II.

2 Sermon III.

3 Sermon IV.

4 The opinion of the venerable translators of the English Bible is manifest, by the above title being given in the contents of the second chapter of Genesis.