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off the day of religion, because we throw off the God whom that religion regards. We set up the god of the infidel, or of the Socinian, or of the careless worldly professor, which is such an one as himself; and then we worship that idol, by vanity, by carnal indulgence, by the neglect of all the spiritual duties of the Christian Sabbath. Let the God of the Bible be enthroned in the heart, and the Sabbath which that God blessed and sanctified, will be duly honoured. To love him, to glorify him, to worship him, to meditate on his works, to prepare for the enjoyment of him for ever, will fully occupy that sacred portion of time which he has appointed for those ends. Faith in the object of worship will produce the sanctification of the day of worship. And thus shall we join the instructions of the Old Testament on the subject of the Sabbath, with the grace and strength furnished in the New, and have the patriarchal and Christian day of rest united and fulfilled in all their blessings.

SERMON III.

THE SABBATH VINDICATED UNDER THE GOSPEL FROM PHARISAICAL AUSTERITIES, AND ESTABLISHED BY OUR LORD IN MORE THAN ITS ORIGINAL DIGNITY AND GLORY.

MARK ii. 27, 28.

And he said unto them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.

We now come to a most important part of the argument for the divine authority and perpetual obligation of a day of weekly rest. There has hitherto appeared but little of real weight, or even of plausibility, in the objections raised by our opponents. The fiction of an anticipated history is so groundless, and the attempt to evade the authority of the fourth commandment so violent, that we may almost wonder that any professed believer in Christianity should have advanced them. But the case is different, as it respects the gospel dispensation: our Lord undoubtedly introduced material changes in the observation of the Sabbath as prevalent at the time of his ministry. Undoubtedly he relieved it from many restrictions. On what authority, indeed, these restrictions had been introduced, is another question-but undoubtedly he relieved it. The apostles followed, and transferred the time of its celebration, from the last to the first day of the week; and abrogated finally the ceremonies and rites of the Jewish law. All this is considered by many

as a repeal of the institution altogether-they view the Christian Sabbath as a new command resting on a new basis-and that basis the mere example of the apostles.

Let us then calmly consider this part of the subject. The authority of our Redeemer, as "Lord of the Sabbath," to abrogate or dissolve any divine ordinance, is acknowledged on all hands.

Here it will be convenient to divide the question into two parts. The divine authority of the Sabbath itself under the Christian dispensation: and the ground on which the day of its observation was changed. In other words, we must answer two questions: HAVE WE A SABBATH of divine appOINTMENT UNDER THE GOSPEL? and, Is THAT SABBATH THE LORD'S DAY? The first will оссиру the present discourse; the second, the following one.

Now if the statements we have made in our preceding arguments be at all valid, this first question will almost answer itself. For we left the Sabbath on the margin of the Old Testament, ready to step over into the Evangelical dispensation. We had brought up the proof of its continued obligation from its first enactment in paradise, to the very line of separation. The glories of the six days' work, succeeded by a seventh day's repose, as inscribed on the order of creation-the insertion of the law of the Sabbath into the ten commandments-its distinct and lofty position above the ceremonies of Moses in the very midst of that economy-its inculcation by the prophets as of essential moral force, and as about to form a part of the Messiah's kingdom;-all this implies that Christ's religion would not be deprived of its day of rest -that the most perfect dispensation would not be inferior in privilege to the less perfect-that where all is grace, and light, and universality, we should not be allowed a smaller portion of time for the immediate honour of our God, and communion with him, than where bondage and fear prevailed.

And this we shall accordingly find to be the case. We shall see the ten commandments, and the Sabbath amongst the number, recognized by our Lord and his

apostles-we shall observe our Saviour honouring it on all occasions by his practice, and only vindicating it from unauthorized traditions injurious to its real design. We shall find that nothing is abrogated under the gospel with respect to it, but those temporary ceremonies and statutes which constituted the peculiarities of the Jewish age. We shall perceive that the especial promise of the New Testament has for its object to render its duties more practicable and delightful, and thus to increase tenfold its obligation.

That is, we shall discover that the solemn axiom delivered by our Lord in the text, together with the caution and inference connected with it, establishes the true principle on which the Christian day of rest is to be enforced.

THE SABBATH WAS MADE FOR MAN; was originally bestowed on him as a boon-was granted him for his necessary repose from worldly toil and care-was made for man, as consisting of body and soul, as requiring rest and refreshment for the one, religious instruction for the other; as created for his Maker's glory, and destined for eternal happiness or misery—that the Sabbath, in short, was appointed and made, not for the Jew merely, but for man universally, FOR MAN AS MAN, in every age, and under all dispensations.

What a noble declaration of the perpetual design and authority of the institution! Of all our Saviour's axioms, few are more clear, definite, important, universal. It takes for granted that there would be a Sabbath under the gospel dispensation: and it defines its purposes-that it was for the advantage and benefit of man-for his highest welfare both as to his body and soul.

Nor is the caution which our Lord adds less appropriate, considering the austerities which the Jewish masters had imposed; NOT MAN FOR THE SABBATH. Their error lay in overlooking the grand moral end of the institution. They taught that "man was made for the Sabbath." Our Lord recalls the institution to its first and true design; he teaches that it was not a rite ending in itself, and to which its moral purposes should yield; but that God would "have mercy and not sacrifice," and

that when the real spiritual and exalted interests of man, for which it was appointed, required a suspension of any of its outward observances, that suspension was lawful.

The axiom and caution explain all our Lord's conduct. The fundamental law of the Sabbath remains unchanged; as it began, so it will end only with the world itself. But the embarrassments and trammels of pharisaical imposi tions are dissolved, and its genuine simplicity is restored.

The inference follows of course; THEREFORE THE SON OF MAN IS LORD ALSO OF THE SABBATH. For the institution having originally been made for the good of man; and "the Lord of the Sabbath" having become, by his incarnation "the Son of man," for redeeming him from death, for introducing the last dispensation, and ordering all things in that dispensation for his best welfare, THEREFORE the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath," to expound as legislator its injunctions, to annul with authority the impositions introduced contrary to its genuine spirit, to leave it as one of the distinctions and privileges of his universal and spiritual kingdom.

Proceed we, then, to consider the divine obligation of the weekly day of rest under the gospel, as apparent from several considerations.

I. THE RECOGNITION OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, AND OF THE FOURTH AMONGST THE NUMBER, which our Lord and his apostles make. This is decisive of the question as to the authority of the Sabbath under the gospel.

It will be recollected, that the moral law had from the time of Moses been perfectly well known as a code or body of moral statutes, under the distinct titles of "The Tables of the Law," "The Commandments," "The Law," and similar appropriate names; which, as we have already remarked, meant the same, with reference to other commands, as "The Bible" means with regard to other books. It need scarcely be noticed, also, that "The Commandments" were divided into two parts, the first containing four precepts and no more, the second

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