Sayfadaki görseller
PDF
ePub

SECTION V.

Wherever the Sabbath is kept holy, it will bring along with it the richest temporal and spiritual blessings. Here we appeal to the promises of God, and to undeniable facts.

The promises are such as these:- For thus saith the Lord, unto the eunuchs that keep my Sabbath, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant; even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls, a place and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. Also, the sons of the strangers that join themselves unto the Lord to serve him-every one that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant, even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon my altar." Isa. lvi. 4-7. "If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob, thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." Isa. lviii. 13, 14. "And it shall come to pass, if ye diligently hearken unto me, saith the Lord, to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the

Sabbath day, but hallow the Sabbath day, to do no work therein; then shall there enter into the gates of this city, kings and princes sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and this city shall remain forever." Jer. xvii. 24, 25.

These surely are great and precious promises. All the pious Jews found them so in their own happy and prosperous experience, and it is too late to say, that they were meant for the Jews only. For in esatblishing the perpetuity of the Sabbath, we have in effect proved that the promises and denunciations connected with keeping or profaning it, are addressed to all mankind. To all who keep the Sabbath holy in every age and nation the promises come, laden with the richest blessings of heaven.

"I have long found by experience," says Lord Chief Justice Hale to his children, "that the due observance of this day, and the duties of it, have been of singular comfort and advantage to me; and I doubt not that you, my children, will find it so to you. God Almighty is the lord of our time, and lends it to us; and as it is but just that we should consecrate this part of our time to him; so I have found by a strict and diligent observation, that a due observance of this day hath ever had joined to it a blessing upon the rest of my time; and the week that hath so begun, hath been blessed and prosperous to me; and on the contrary side, when I have been negligent of the duties of his day, the rest of the week hath been unsuc

cessful and unhappy to my secular employments; so that I could easily make an estimate of my own secular employments the week following, by the manner of my spending the Sabbath day: and this I do not say slightly, or inconsiderately; but upon a long and sound observation and experience."

Few Christians, probably, have been so observant in this particular as Sir Mathew Hale; but not a few can, we are persuaded, give substantially the same testimony from the less full and accurate records of their own personal experience. Keeping the Sabbath holy, is an essential branch of that "godliness, which is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, as well as of that which is to come." All men in a Christian land might know, if they would, that in keeping the fourth commandment, as well as every other, there is great reward. It is a reproach to thousands of professing Christians, that while the world has its monthly prognostications, its lucky and unlucky days, borrowed from the heathen, or designated by mere caprice, they lay so little stress upon a day, the devout observance of which has such a mighty influence upon the happiness of individuals, and the well-being of society.

The Sabbath was made for man-was made for his comfort-was made to promote his happiness here, and to prepare him for an eternal rest in heaven. Our being required to keep the Sabbath holy, casts a divine lustre upon the benevolence of its Author:-for it is exactly adapted to our nature and circumstances. So far is it from interrupt

ing the lawful and necessary business of human life, that it gives new energy to our bodies and minds, and new sweetness to all our secular labors. It is a fact well attested, and fully established by experience, that in the long run, men can do more work in six days of the week, than they can in seven. The same, as we have already remarked, is true of cattle and horses; so that the mere worldling finds it for his interest to rest on the Lord's day.

A fact occurs to us here, which is directly in point. Not many years ago, a contractor went on to the west, with his hired men and teams, to make a turnpike road. At first, he paid no regard to the Sabbath; but continued his work as on other days. He soon found, however, that the ordinances of nature, no less than the moral law, were against him. His laborers became sickly; his teams grew poor and feeble, and being fully convinced, that more was lost than gained by working on the Lord's day, he desisted. So true is it, that the Sabbath day laborer, like the glutton and the drunkard, undermines his health, and prematurely hastens the infirmities of age, and his exit from this world.

SECTION VI.

The Sabbath has been kept as holy time, by the people of God, in all ages. It has been to them, not a burden, but a delight, the holy of the Lord, and honorable." That such eminent saints as Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, and Nehemi

And as

ah, were strict and constant in their observance of it, cannot be doubted. That the apostles and primitive churches statedly assembled for public worship, on the Lord's day, is certain. And that they abstained from labor, and spent the whole day in religious duties, may be confidently inferred, as well from their eminent piety, as from the sanctions of the Divine Law, which they cannot be supposed to have disregarded. For we have already proved, that Jesus Christ left the law as he found it, after freeing it from the false glosses of the Scribes and Pharisees. The disciples would, of course, take it from him. the people of God had always done before them, they would remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. This is the only fair and legitimate inference, and it cannot be set aside by any thing short of direct proof to the contrary. The Bible furnishes no such proof :-not a word, nor a hint, that Christians of the apostolic age, did their own work, or found their own pleasures, on the Lord's day. That the Sabbath has been regarded and kept as holy time, in the sense already explained, and in almost every subsequent age, might be proved by innumerable quotations from the works of the Christian fathers, the decrees of councils, and the statutes of ancient kings, as well as from the writings and practice of the most eminent reformers and brightest luminaries of the Church within the last three hundred years. But we can only afford room for a few brief extracts.

Ignatius, a disciple of the apostle John, says,

« ÖncekiDevam »