The Sabbath: A Sermon

Transcribed from the 1831 Roake and Varty edition by David Price. Many thanks to the British Library for making their copy available.
BY THE REV. WILLIAM WOOD, B.D. RECTOR OF COULSDON, AND VICAR OF FULHAM.
LONDON: ROAKE AND VARTY, 31, STRAND. 1831.
LONDON: ROAKE AND VARTY, PRINTERS, 31, STRAND.
TO THE INHABITANTS OF COULSDON, THE FOLLOWING SERMON, INTENDED TO HAVE BEEN PREACHED IN THEIR CHURCH IN THE AFTERNOON OF OCTOBER 23rd, IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED, AND PRINTED FOR THEIR INSTRUCTION, BY THEIR FAITHFUL PASTOR.
The Sermon here presented to the Public is below all criticism. It makes no pretensions to novelty, or to merit of any kind; it is only one of the thousands which are preached every week by men, who, in the midst of evil report, labour, nevertheless, with an anxious zeal for the salvation of souls. It was composed in haste, with no intention of printing it, for a sequestered parish, where much remains of ancient simplicity; but where the author lamented to see, as he thought, a neglect of public worship, not occasioned by infidelity, or by profligacy, as in great towns, but by ignorance of the subject, or thoughtlessness of conduct.
The inclemency of the weather having prevented him from preaching it at the time intended, and no other opportunity being likely to occur for many months, he determined to print it at once for the use of his parishioners; but some other little tracts of his, with the same limited object, having been called for by persons desirous of doing good in their several spheres, and on a larger scale, he thinks it possible that they may wish to have this also, and therefore he publishes it.
The subject of the sermon, in these days especially, is a momentous one. May God bless it, for the sake of the subject, to his own glory, and to the benefit of men! The author has no other wish.
Exod. xx. 8. “ Remember the Sabbath-day , to keep it holy .”
This command, to remember the Sabbath-day, in order to keep it holy, was given by Almighty God himself to the Jews. I say, it was given by himself. He did not order any prophet, or other holy man, to give it in his name; He gave it himself in his own person; He spoke it aloud, in the ears of all the people, with his own voice. And this voice, as we are told, was so terrible, that the hearers of it were smitten with intolerable fear and trembling, and began to entreat, with the most humble and urgent supplications, that God would vouchsafe, in future, to make known his will to them by the voice of Moses rather than by his own.