SERMON IX.

DEUTERONOMY V. 12,

KEEP THE SABBATH-DAY, TO SANCTIFY IT, AS THE LORD THY GOD HATH COMMANDED THEE.

HE appropriation of one day in seven

to the purposes of religion, is a prac¬ tice peculiar to the Jewish and the Christian revelations. And it is a practice fo full of wisdom, utility, and humanity, that it may well be produced as one argument, among many others ftill more convincing, of their divine original,

By comparing together the primary institution of the fabbath, as related in the Book of Genefis, and the alterations it afterwards received from our Saviour and his apostles, it

is

is evident that the Chriftian fabbath is to be confidered under two diftinct points of view. First. As a day of reft from labour.

Secondly. As a day fet

As a day fet apart for the

public worship of God.

ift. As a day of reft from labour. This reft was, by the Mofaic law, so rigorously exacted, that the violation of it was prohibited under no less a penalty than that of death *. Our divine mafter, in this as well as in many other inftances, greatly foftened the severity of that law. But yet it was plainly his intention, that there should be a general ceffation of labour on this day. The original reason for this part of the inftitution ftill fubfifted in his days, and muft fubfift till the end of time; namely, that it might be a standing memorial of the great work of creation, from which the almighty Author of it refted, or ceased, on the feventh day, and therefore he bleffed and fanctified that day for ever. To this Chrift himself added another reafon, of a fimilar nature; having on the following day refted from the great work of redemption}

which he compleated by rifing from the dead. Our abstinence, therefore, from the ordinary occupations of life on the Lord's day, is a tacit kind of acknowledgement that we were created by God, and redeemed by Christ, and that we are duly fenfible of the duties refulting from thofe relations. It appears, moreover, that our Lord himself very religiously observed the rest of the fabbath ; which he no otherwife interrupted than by miracles of mercy and compaffion. And we may most certainly conclude, that the very same benevolence of difpofition which dictated these humane exceptions, would prompt him alfo to improve and enforce, both by his doctrine and example, the general rule of resting on the seventh day. For never was there any injunction fo replete with kindness and compaffion to the whole human race, especially to the lowest and most wretched part of it, as this. There cannot be a more pleasing or a more confolatory idea prefented to the human mind, than that of one universal pause of labour throughout the whole Chriftian world at the fame moment of time; diffufing reft, comfort, and peace through a large part

of the habitable globe, and affording ease and refreshment, not only to the lowest part of our own species, but to their fellow-labourers in the brute creation. Even these are enabled to join in this filent act of adoration, this mute kind of homage to the great Lord of all; and although they are incapable of any fentiments of religion, yet by this means they become sharers in the blessings of it. Every man of the leaft fenfibility muft fee, muft feel the beauty and utility of fuch an inftitution as this; and must see, at the fame time, the cruelty of invading this moft valuable privilege of the inferior clafs of mankind, and breaking in upon that facred repose, which God himself has, in pity to their fufferings, given to thofe that stand most in need of it. It was a point in which it highly became the majesty and the goodness of heaven itself to interpofe. And happy was it for the world that it did fo. For, had man, unfeeling man, been left to himself, with no other fpur to compaffion than natural instinct, or unaffifted reason, there is but too much ground to apprehend he would have been deaf to the cries of his labouring brethren,