in the tremulous avoidance of what may be sinful, made so not by its nature but by positive appointment; but they go straightforward to the work of improvement. To be so employed is ever man's best and happiest course. It is not by being afraid all the day that this or that (innocent at other times) may be a desecration and a sin, and make God angry, that good is realized. It is by pursuing the object. It is by seeking instruction. It is by cultivating devotional feeling. It is by entering into the very spirit of religious observances. It is by coming with full purpose of heart to our professed and honest aim. This will realize the end most effectually. It will make the Sunday, in the thoughts and feelings it produces during the week, as a fountain of living and run::ing waters, sparkling in the sun, and fertilizing the earth, and hastening on their course in activity, and purity, and music, and gladness; while the ceremonial sabbath is but a standing pool, neither reflecting the sun, nor enrichiug the ground, and proud of its unwholesome torpidity of dark corruption. The angel must descend from heaven to trouble such waters, before they have any healing power. Heaven is the Christian's eternal sabbath; but the rest of heaven is the activity of benevolence.

3. To the civil and the religious principle, I said that another must be added, peculiarly Christian. It is well that the day of cessation from toil which the community requires, and the day of instruction and worship which religion requires, should coincide; that they should be the same day. Best of all is it that that day should be the day which proclaimed immortality to mankind by the resurrection of Christ. The

very fact does something of that day's holy work upon the heart. The very fact is food for faith and hope. Every rising of that sun may make itself welcome to the eyes of those who are weary and heavy laden with this world's cares, for it ushers in the day of rest that tells them of a future world of rest. Every rising of that sun should beam a joyous light upon the eyes of him who is bewildered in perplexities and doubts, for it calls attention to the truths which are the distracted soul's best guidance, directing to the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world.' Every rising of that sun is welcome to the aspirant after higher attainments and purer joys than those of earth, for it is the day of his revival who ascended to heaven as our forerunner. The rising of that sun is new life to those that mourn, it dawns in hope upon their sorrow, and tells them of each loved and lost one too, he is not here, he is risen.' associations of the Jewish sabbath were but with creation; these are with redemption; they were supported by a theory, these cling around a fact; they were of the past, this is of the future; they were of life, this is of immortality. Yes, this is the day when society should tell the sons of toil to rest. Yes, this is the day when religion should call the sons and daughters of God to assemble in their father's house. Yes, this is the day when the Gospel should assert its power, and unfold its promises, and extend its triumphs and its blessings. There is propriety, there is reason, there is justice, there is benevolence, there is religion, in the selection, and its voluntary employment. It was made for man; this bearing of varied motives all

The

on one point, it is good for him to feel; and the obligation it asserts is in the blessings it confers.

Christ's manner of speaking of the sabbath, and of acting upon it, were admirably adapted to accomplish the transition he contemplated from the religion of ceremony to that of spirituality. He often chose it for the time of miracle. That was 'work' to which even they could not consistently object; for the power was of God,and his reply was ready, 'my Father worketh hitherto, and I work.' He abolished not, formally, the Mosaic sabbath; he knew Providence was about to do that, by the dreadful catastrophe soon to come on Judea. He provided that, when it should pass away, there should be something purer, simpler, and better, to supply its place. It ill becomes his followers to go back towards what Paul called 'beggarly elements,' things 'passing away;' they should enter into the spirit of the Gospel, and rise from slavish ceremony and superstitious observance to rationality and utility, regarding the reformation and elevation of the human character and the multiplication of human happiness, as the great end of all; and all actions, exercises, instructions, assemblings, as the means; the scaffolding of the building,-the top stone of which shall at length be brought forth with joy, angels shouting, grace, grace, unto it. And so shall be erected and perfected our house of God eternal in the heavens.

SERMON XIX.

RELIGIOUS REFORMATION.

JEREMIAH vi. 16.

Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.

Although divine revelation is so constituted as to accommodate itself to the progress of the human mind; so as to expand with the expansion of intellect; and, like an exhaustless mine of truth, yield the more richly the more of talent and of industry are brought to work on its resources; yet is it also true, and completely consistent, that its principles and spirit were perfect from the first and at the first; it is not in them, but in their applications and results, that the accommodation takes place to man's advancement; and a frequent appeal to them is needful to stem the course of the errors and corruptions which obtain from time to time. As to the first and fundamental principles of faith and conduct, our inquiry must be for the old paths; they alone are the good ways which will lead to a safe rest for our souls. And the antiquity to which we look should be the highest. Not the old ways of this or that sect or

church, but of religion itself, and its authorized teachers, of Moses and Christ, of prophets and apostles, as delineated in the sacred scriptures. This is the only antiquity entitled to authority. "To the law and the testimony;' there is the rule, which must show whether we have the true light in us, or are bewildered in error and stumbling in darkness.

This appeal we are accustomed to make as to the differences of doctrine between ourselves and the rest of the christian world. I think it becomes us to make that appeal at all proper times and in all proper ways; from the press and from the pulpit; to make it frequently, earnestly, and zealously. Our allegiance to the cause of knowledge and of truth demands it of us; and the vindication of our conduct in doing so, is, to my mind, complete and satisfactory.

But even if it were not so, there is another way in which our zeal is equally required, and where the duties and difficulties which some feel about efforts which have truth, abstractedly considered, for their object, can have no place. The departure from the doctrinal verity of the Gospel is not greater than that from its practical spirit. The two are connected; zeal is justified by either; but as in relation to the latter it rests on grounds which are universally undeniable, its obligations ought to be universally admitted, and its power universally felt and exhibited.

To this I would now direct your attention; I would show you how much there is, in the Christian world, besides such doctrines as those of the trinity, satisfaction, eternal torment, and the like, which needs correction; how much there is which is practically wrong,