Let it then be ours to use every effort to “prepare the way of the Lord,” that so we may be the blessed instruments of advancing the Redeemer’s kingdom upon earth. Amongst us, let His name and His Sabbaths be honoured and reverenced; and, above all, let us unite in earnest prayer to Him who can “destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent,” [17b] that He may frustrate the designs of those who would array themselves against Him, that they may be put to shame and confusion, and so His promise be fulfilled, “When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.” [17c]
But while the observance of the Sabbath may be regarded as a national duty, yet it is, at the same time, an individual duty. While we are required, as a nation, to honour God in this respect, we have, besides, an individual responsibility which is independent of it.
The subject opens to us a very wide field, and it would be impossible, within the brief limits to which we are confined, to enter upon all that might be said. The words of Isaiah contain, perhaps, the fullest explanation of the manner in which the Sabbath should be observed that is to be found in the records of inspiration. They enjoin an entire cessation from our worldly business and pleasures, and from all such conversation as shall unfit us for the duties of religion; and, at the same time, they teach us that our thoughts and attention should be directed to the great business for which the day was instituted.
Now our duty upon the Sabbath naturally divides itself into three parts: the public worship of God; the cultivation of family religion; and the maintenance of personal piety.
It is not needful that I should seek, by anything which I might say, to impress upon you the importance of a constant and devout attendance upon the services of the Church. I need not remind you of the blessings which shall surely be the portion of those who shall “dwell in the courts of the Lord’s house,” and whose feet are to be found in “the sanctuary of God,”—who are ever mindful of the Saviour’s promise, “Where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there am I in the midst of them.” [18a] In many a heart does the language of the sweet singer of Israel find an echo, when he gives utterance to those exulting words, “I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the House of the Lord. Our feet shall stand within thy gates, Oh Jerusalem.” [18b] I speak to those who love and reverence the Church of England—the Church of our country and our fathers—the Church beneath whose hallowed walls are strewn the graves of Martyrs and Confessors—the Church which has been watered by the blood of the Saints, and which is surely “built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone.” [19a] Oh that that Church, whose “walls are Salvation, and her gates Praise,” [19b] may increase a hundredfold, and flourish in the midst of us! Oh that she may be enshrined in the hearts of the people of this land; that her divisions may be healed, her time-honoured system be developed, and above all, her “priests be clothed with righteousness,” [19c] that so her mission upon earth may be accomplished in the subjugation of the hearts and affections of men to the sway of Jesus, and in the building up, “on their most holy faith,” of “a people prepared for the Lord!” “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee. Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces!” [19d]
But the worship of God is only one of the duties of the Sabbath. The cultivation of family religion is a work which should occupy at least some portion of time on this day. The Sabbath was designed to be a day of rest and holy joy. And surely these ends will be answered if, in every little household, parents and children shall meet together in happy and unrestrained intercourse; if it be a time when children shall listen, from a mother’s lips, to the histories of God’s Saints, and hear from her of the love of Jesus; when parents shall use all their efforts, that those who have gathered beneath the same earthly roof, and sat around the same fireside, may not be separated in the Eternal Home above. Are we to be interested in each others’ worldly pleasures and pursuits, to share each others’ earthly joys and sorrows, and yet to have sealed hearts and sealed lips, where “those things which belong to our everlasting peace” are concerned? I believe that, under God’s blessing, there is no more powerful instrument for good, than the early religious instruction of home. The instruction of Sunday Schools is good, and is a mighty instrument in the hands of the Church, for advancing the cause of the Redeemer, but to be really effectual it must be combined with the education of home. Who shall calculate its influence? Who shall say how many a wayward one a mother’s affectionate counsels and admonitions, conveyed in the lesson of the Sunday evening, have been the means of recalling from the paths of sin? Who can tell how long those golden memories lingered in the heart, ere their voice was stilled by long-continued disobedience to God? Nothing, perhaps, is so deeply to be lamented in after life, as the want of the early religious instruction of home. It entwines the things of Heaven with the best and purest of earthly affections. It associates them with the innocence of childhood, and the happiness of home. It stamps upon the heart an impression, which no subsequent career of sin can ever efface, that religion is a happy thing. It makes the Sabbath to be, what it was ever designed to be, “a delight.”
But the maintenance of personal piety is another of the ends for which the Sabbath was instituted. We are placed upon earth that we may prepare for eternity, and these pauses in our lives, these intervals of rest, are intended by God as a means of bringing eternal things from time to time more forcibly before us. Hence a more than ordinary portion of our time should then be devoted to private prayer, to meditation, to the reading of God’s Word. We should be striving so to employ these blessed opportunities that they may not at last become swift witnesses against us. We should seek to place ourselves before “the great white throne,” and to dwell in thought on “Him who sitteth on it.” So will the tumults of passion be stilled in our inmost hearts, and a more than earthly peace be breathed upon our spirits. We shall learn more clearly the great truth, which outward objects are ever hiding from our view, that “the world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but that he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” [21a]
The Sabbath is an emblem of Heaven, and a type of its joys, and so it is in it that we must acquire a taste for those enjoyments. The unregenerate man is unfit for Heaven. It would be no Paradise to him. It is only “the pure in heart” who “shall see God.” [21b] Hence the Christian is here meetening for its happiness. From time to time the veil is lifted, and he is permitted to behold faint glimpses of its glories. In the service of an earthly sanctuary, he hears an echo of the music of Heaven. In his seasons of prayer and Communion with God, and in his freedom from earthly care and toil, he learns something of that “rest” which “remaineth for the people of God.” [22a] The earthly Sabbath is but an earnest and foretaste of the heavenly one. Here it is succeeded by the struggles and anxieties of life. Here thoughts of worldly care often interrupt its happiness. Here there is but the offering of an earthly service, and the devotion of an earthly heart. But there all shall be changed. For His Saints “shall serve Him day and night in His temple: they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.” [22b] No “tears” shall dim the eye. No “death” shall enter the home, and take away from us those whom we love. No “sorrow nor crying,” no “pain” shall be there, “for the former things will have passed away.” [22c]
Be it then your part and mine, brethren, to seek, through “the blood of Jesus,” a meetness for this heavenly rest; so to employ the days of preparation for it which God has given us, that we may indeed “call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable:” to maintain by seasons of worship and earnest service, by Communion with Him at His Table, and in the retirement of the closet, a living union with Christ our Head, that so when our earthly Sabbaths shall have come to a close, and the opportunities of usefulness upon earth be past, we may enter upon that perfect worship and service, which shall develop every power and satisfy every desire of an immortal nature, and share in the rest of that Sabbath which shall never have an end!
LONDON:
STEVENS AND CO., PRINTERS, BELL YARD,
LINCOLN’S-INN-FIELDS.