Already, indeed, do we feel his wrath in part executed upon us, and in part behold it with terror suspended over us. The nightly incendiary, who prowls about in darkness (but God sees him) and destroys the fruits of the earth, which should have been for the food of man; the open rioter, who, in broad day-light, levels with the ground the temple of God, the marts of commerce, the mansions of the great, and puts to the hazard even the life of his beneficent neighbour; the wide-wasting pestilence, which, with havoc and death in its train, has reached the opposite shores, and now only waits the signal to cross the sea to ours; all these are the avenging emissaries of God; but the last more apparently; and I pray God, as King David did, that we may fall into his hands rather than into the hands of men—yet He, who stilleth the fury of the warring elements, can also still “the madness of the people.”
But the great question for you, and which you should lay your hands upon your hearts, and answer conscientiously, is this; how much you yourselves, individually, have contributed to increase the mass of the national guilt in this particular, of which God is so jealous. As my sacred office compels me to speak the truth, and forbids every kind of flattery and dissimulation; as I cannot otherwise be useful to any of you, or assist you in working out your salvation, but by bearing witness to the truth; as I am, moreover, now about to leave you for a while, and therefore wish to give you some departing, farewell advice of the most momentous importance; I say it, I confess, with deep sorrow, and with a painful alarm on your account, that, even in this otherwise well-disposed and well-ordered parish, there is a too evident, and a too great, neglect of the Sabbath. In the true spirit of pastoral affection, but in the plain, manly, authoritative language of an Apostle, I say, “I cannot praise you in this.”
Alas! alas! what correct idea, or right devout feeling of God’s sabbaths, can they have, who are always absent from God’s house, and who, perhaps, profane these sacred days, besides, by drunkenness, or gaming, or some other revelry? None, undoubtedly. But all our remonstrances from this sacred place must, of necessity, be useless to them; they need them most, but are never present to hear them. Of the rest, how few come here with so much regularity as to show that it is an essential part of their system of life—an established principle of conduct never to be departed from but upon the most urgent, extraordinary occasions! And how will God judge of them, who think that they do sufficient honour to his Sabbath by coming once only, and forget that God may construe their coming but once as a proud assumption on their parts, that they want no more of his sanctifying grace than once a day may be likely to bestow! If the help of the Holy Spirit alone can fit them for salvation, and this help is chiefly given by the ministry of the church, how can they be perfectly satisfied with themselves, and think that they have done enough, when they neglect, once a day, an opportunity of partaking of the spirit, which the church is the instrument to convey? I am not unaware of the circumstances of this parish, which render more sometimes impossible; but how few, how very few, perhaps two or three individuals, lament those circumstances, and the consequent loss of additional means of grace!
But how will God judge even of the most exemplary in any congregation, who never forsake his house, either for pleasure, or for business, or for any of those plausible reasons by which men are too willing to delude themselves to their own ruin; if they spend the rest of the day, nevertheless, as they spend the other days of the week, and do not remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy throughout; if they do not devote the whole of it with a sober, religious awe to God; if they do not send their children and servants to church with the same punctuality as they go themselves; if they do not shun all the resorts of sensuality and gaiety abroad, or admit such inmates at home; if they do not study the Holy Scriptures, and put aside all other books but such as may tend to build them up in faith and piety; and, in short, if they do not live on this one day, in conformity with the sacred nature of the day, so uniformly and so universally, as to throw a sanctity around the lawful business and the lawful pleasures of every other day, and gradually to make their whole life truly Christian, truly divine, and fit, indeed, for heaven.
Now, if they do not accomplish all this, whatever else they do, they fall short of a due observance of the Sabbath; and who is there, even amongst the most exemplary, alas! who ever thinks of accomplishing so much? Alas, alas! who is there amongst any of us, who, in some way or other, does not absolutely break the Sabbath, or even profane it? And what wonder, then, that there should be so much looseness, licentiousness, and depravity of manners in our nation; and that so many evils assail us, so many impend over our heads, and threaten us with some mighty ruin? Sabbath-breaking has led to the temporal and eternal ruin of thousand and tens of thousands; it cannot but lead to the deeper corruption of all; to the gradual undermining and ultimate extinction of all religious principle in the heart of man. When a people cast off their respect for God’s Sabbaths, they are prepared to run the full career of irreligion, and of profligacy, and of all the atrocities which scourge and afflict mankind.
There are persons in this congregation old enough to remember, as I do, a whole powerful nation, our nearest neighbours, casting it off, as it appeared, with one consent, and, by cruelties almost unheard of before, compelling their spiritual pastors and ministers to fly into exile; neither religion, nor the semblance of religion being tolerated any longer among them. And what was the issue? This amazing apostacy was followed immediately by such deeds of horror, by such tragical excesses, as will never be blotted out of the annals of time. But the same impious means have been industriously used to produce the same subversion of principle here amongst us at home; and, God knows, they have but too well succeeded with too many; so that we can scarcely exult any longer with our former honourable pride, that our country is as renowned for religion, for piety and virtue, for good order and submission to authority, and for the deep abhorrence of all atrocities, as she is for freedom, for wealth, for victory, and for power.
Finally, then, in bidding you farewell, I earnestly beseech you all, and through you I beseech the rest who are under my spiritual charge, to ponder most deeply and seriously, and to lay to heart also, what God himself spoke with such terrible signs of his power, and what his divine finger wrote for an everlasting memorial; what He decreed in the beginning of time when He rested from his marvellous works, and pronounced them good; and what our blessed Saviour, the fulfiller of all righteousness, obeyed in the true spirit of the command, and set the pattern to every succeeding generation of Christians; I earnestly beseech you all to “remember the sabbath-day, to keep it holy.” And let the first proof of your remembrance of it, and the first act of keeping it holy, be your constant attendance here in God’s house—a practice which will lead you on step by step to every other good work. Let your ministers lament no more the thin attendance of their hearers, in the afternoons especially. Come as often as you may, you will scarcely return without being the better and the wiser for it. I speak not of worldly wisdom, but of the wisdom which will save your souls. What blessing is there, of which you stand in need? Come here, and pray for it in concert with the whole assembly—your united prayers, with one mind and heart, ascending to God, will fetch every blessing down. Is there any blessing of which you feel the enjoyment? Come here, and thank God for it before your fellow-men. Are you ignorant of any of the great gospel-doctrines which are necessary to be known? Come here, and they will be explained, each in its proper season, and you will be instructed to have a due and awful sense of their importance. Have you been seduced into sin; do your devotions become languid; do you neglect any duty; is your benevolence cold? Come to God’s house, and you will hear discourses, it is to be hoped, as well as striking passages of scripture, which will awaken and arouse you; keep heaven always in your sight; fill you with heavenly affections; and prepare you to dwell in some heavenly mansion with the blessed saints of God. We, your ministers, I trust, amidst all the discouragements with which we are surrounded, the entire absence of so many, the apparent lukewarmness of others, preach, nevertheless, with the same zeal as if we preached to multitudes athirst for the word of God, and do not abate one tittle in our fervent desire for your everlasting salvation. The more, indeed, men neglect themselves, the more should the ministers of Christ care for them, and stir up every faculty which they have to rescue them from their dream of false security. Let not this labour of ours be in vain! Labour for yourselves as we labour for you; all of us alike, however, trusting to a greater strength than our own. And I pray God, that, under the influence of the Divine strength, and guided by his Holy Spirit, you may become the crown of our labours, and enable us to give up the account of our stewardship over you with joy.
THE END.
LONDON:
ROAKE AND VARTY, PRINTERS, 31, STRAND.