LONDON:
GEORGE BELL, 186, FLEET STREET.

MACCLESFIELD:
SWINNERTON AND BROWN.

1853.

THE SABBATH.

ISAIAH LVIII. 13, 14.

“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, honourable; and shalt honour 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.”

There is no belief so universal as that of a future state of existence. Men are born into the world, appear for a brief space upon the stage of life, and then sink into the grave. But the human mind has looked beyond this to a distant and unknown Future. Those who were destitute of a Divine Revelation had necessarily very vague and imperfect notions respecting it. Hence the many different theories, the belief in which has prevailed from time to time, in the heathen world; and, in all of these, the certainty of rewards and punishments, and of future happiness or misery, was admitted. Their heaven, indeed, was peopled with strange divinities, and the enjoyments which they anticipated were generally of an earthly and sensual nature; yet their belief in it seemed naturally to suggest the necessity of some preparation by themselves. The two things appeared to be inseparable. The entrance to the heathen Elysium was to be obtained only by piety towards the gods. Hence the gorgeous temples which rose to their honour in the cities of ancient Greece and Italy; the sacrifices daily made at their altars; the prayers and costly offerings at their shrines. And not only so, but particular portions of time seem from the earliest periods to have been regarded as sacred, and set apart for holy purposes; and it is remarkable, that the consecration of one day in seven appears to have been almost universal in the heathen world. This may, perhaps, be attributed to some faint rays of that Divine Revelation, which was given to a part of the human race, and which tradition had handed down: the principle itself was universally acknowledged. That Revelation, indeed, has cleared away the mystery which enshrouded the eternal world; it has explained the nature of that happiness which is provided for man; it has enjoined the observance of every seventh day as a time of preparation for it; it has distinctly laid down the obligation and duties of that day; and it has unfolded the promises which God has graciously made to those who shall habitually honour it.

Now it is not to be wondered at, that a command embracing so many different duties, and the obligation of which is so universal, should, in all ages, have been regarded in different lights by different nations and individuals. Even in our own land, many contradictory opinions are held respecting it, by those who yet all unite in a profession of Christianity.

The subject, as you are aware, is now occupying a large share of public attention, from the fact that an attempt is being made to infringe the sanctity of the Sabbath, as it is now by the law of this country protected, and in fact to legalize its desecration. Hence it becomes the plain and manifest duty of every Christian man to be well informed as to the obligation which God has laid upon him to observe and keep holy this day, as also to know the especial purposes for which it was set apart. And I have thought that it may not be an unprofitable subject for our meditation this evening, if I briefly lay before you the Scripture grounds for the observance of the Sabbath; and then, as far as I may be able to do so, endeavour to show you in what manner it should be kept holy.

I. And here I would set out with the remark, that the proof of the obligation of the Sabbath is to be sought for entirely from the Scriptures. The whole rests upon a Divine Revelation. And it becomes the more needful to examine what is said upon the subject, in that Revelation, as an attempt has frequently been made to prove that the Christian Sabbath, especially, is not a Divine institution, and that the fact of its sanctity rests only upon the authority of the Church, and not upon that of God Himself.

1. And, first, with respect to the original institution of the Sabbath. It was one of the two great ordinances, “instituted of God in the time of man’s innocency;” and it was consequently given at a very early period in the history of the world. The record of the command, and of the purposes for which it was designed, is found in Gen. ii. 1–3. Several things are apparent from a consideration of this passage. We see that the Sabbath was given to the whole race of mankind, because it was given to our first parents; that God “blessed it,” that is, designed it to be the source of especial blessings to Adam and his descendants; and that He sanctified it, that is, “set it apart,” which is the literal meaning of the words, for sacred purposes. We find no reference made to any particular people, but it was evidently designed as an example from the Divine Creator to the whole human family. The work of creation had occupied six days, and on the seventh “God rested from all His work which He created and made.”