we exhibit it under a joyless and forbidding aspect. Rather confess the real truth, that you have no taste for its spiritual delights. Confess that you entertain no notions of enjoyment unconnected with sensual gratification: that your ideas of a religious festival coincide with those of the idolators of old, who sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play*. Confess that a Sabbath passed in holy exercises, in communion with God, in contemplation of his excellences, in the study of his word, in acts of piety, mercy, and charity; confess that the Sabbath thus passed would be weariness to you, a task painful and irksome to the feelings of your heart. And now tremble at the confession which you have inadvertently made. Tremble to reflect, that by your own acknowledgement you are unprepared for death, unfit for heaven, unable to participate its happiness. If the observance of a short Sabbath here be a work so painful and offensive, what will an eternal Sabbath prove? If you cannot bear to pass one day in seven in the worship and service of your Maker, how will you endure an eternity employed in seeing God and serving him? With a soul thus alienated from the life of God, would not heaven itself be to you

* Cor. x. 7.

a place of anguish? Would not the sight of so many millions of blessed creatures, blessed in the participation of delights, in which you could find no pleasure, distract you with envy, disappointment, rage, and grief, with every hateful and tormenting passion? Tremble, my brethren, at your aweful state. Tremble at the dreadful precipice on which you totter. Regard your aversion to the Sabbath, your distaste for its spiritual enjoyments, as an undeniable proof of a truth, which perhaps you are unwilling to admit, the natural enmity of your heart to God. Seek then of Him that new heart, which he has promised to those who seek it. Pray to him to circumcise your heart that you may love the Lord your God*; that you may find delight in his ordinances now; and, by the pleasure which you experience in keeping his Sabbaths on earth, may evidence your meetness for entering into that heavenly and eternal rest, which remaineth for the people of God.

But it is not to those only who altogether neglect or pervert the institution of the Sabbath, that the view which has been taken of the subject may be followed with beneficial effects. There are others to whom the discussion may prove, if not in an equal, yet in

*Deut. xxx. 6.

a high degree profitable. Many persons who appear to be actuated by a sincere intention of keeping holy the Sabbath day, yet, from not duly attending to the Design of the institution, greatly err in the manner of observing it. Not considering that their spiritual improvement is the great End for which the Sabbath was appointed, and so far only as this End is promoted, the day is properly observed by them, they deem it sufficient to be occupied in a constant succession of religious exercises, without adverting to the practical influence of these exercises on their own hearts. They perform the sacred duties of the day, as if man was made for the Sabbath, and not the Sabbath for man: as if the discharge of those sacred duties, which were prescribed only as means of grace, constituted in fact the end for which the institution was established. From the same cause another evil of considerable magnitude results. An undue attention is paid to some duties before others. The objects, for the attainment of which only they were enjoined, not being kept in view, the relative importance of each, and also the necessity of assigning to each its proper place, and a proportionate regard, are overlooked. Hence one duty is immoderately preferred and practised to the neglect, and even to the exclusion, of another. Attendance on public ordinances is suffered to

engross so large a portion of the day as not to allow time for private prayer, for self-examination, for the study of the word of God: or these duties of the closet, it may be, are protracted to such an unseasonable length, that the no less important duties of family prayer, and of family instruction, are hastily performed, or altogether omitted. These evils, a more intimate acquaintance with the real Design of the Sabbath would tend to correct. It would teach the persons in question, that the true criterion of having kept holy the Sabbath day consists, not in the number of hours devoted to reading at home, or to hearing sermons at church, but in the actual proficiency which has been made in holiness, in the mortification of sin, and in the attainment of Christian tempers, and of heavenly dispositions. It would shew that an exact distribution of time among the several duties enjoined, according to their respective claims, and to the opportunities vouchsafed, is essential to the proper observ ance of the Sabbath; and that the discharge of one duty cannot be permitted to entrench on that of another without a proportionable intrusion on the good order of the day. The leading inquiries by which a person, who strictly regards the End of the Sabbath, will examine himself, are these. "While "I have spent the day in a series of religious

"exercises, have I performed them not merely

as formal services, as empty acts of obe"dience, but as means which I have been "commanded to use for the strengthening "and confirming of my soul in the ways of godliness? Have I sought to become more

holy, more humble, more spiritual, by all "the duties in which I have been engaged? "Have I endeavoured to profit by the ser"mons to which I have listened; to grow "not only in knowledge, but in grace? And is it my sincere desire, that, in the future "tenor of my life, my profiting may appear “unto all men? Have I duly respected the different duties of the day? Have I so re

66

66

gulated my performance of them, that each "has received its appropriate share of time "and attention? Have I remembered that "my children and my servants have eternal

interests at stake? that the Sabbath was "made for them as well as for myself? Have "I then made provision that they should

66

66

equally partake with myself the advantages "of the Sabbath? Have I instructed them at "home? Have I afforded them leisure for joining in the public worship of God? "Have I exerted my authority in inducing "them to improve the opportunities thus placed in their power? In a word, has it "been my object to make this season of holy