that, if we would like to be blest in death, we must labour now, that we may have works to follow when we die. Our interest in Christ will be our only title to enter heaven: it is only in his righteousness, put on us by faith, that we can appear in his courts; but his righteousness imputed to us, is only a plea for heaven, not a qualification for its enjoyment. The proof that we are justified, is, that we have the Spirit of Christ in our hearts, and this Spirit will sustain us in the labours, and help us in the works, which are to prove that we are his disciples. In doing so, the Spirit will mould us to the pattern of the heavenly household, and the works which are hereafter to appear as our witnesses in heaven, will be the means of fitting us to appear there ourselves.

Are you, my brethren, fellow-workers with God, and of the household of faith? Are you conscious of a desire to live to Christ, that in death you may sleep in him? And has your conscience condemned you of no allowed sin? Is it your endeavour to abound in good works, and that for God's glory, as well as your own advancement in holiness? Let the text, then, stimulate you to a continuance in well-doing: in due season you shall reap if you faint not. The duties, and the services, and the sacrifices with which you are at present conversant, are intimately connected with your final portion. In your present state, your discipleship involves much that is painful, and much constraint must you put on natural inclination, and many a conflict must you wage with your spiritual enemies: but from all that is painful will you be relieved when you rest from your labours in death, for present trials will work out "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;" and your works of faith, and your labours of love, will follow you to your great account. Therefore, be ye instant ín season, and out of season, in doing good. Grudge not a few sacrifices and exertions in your Master's service; they will yield to you a plenteous harvest. You may sow in tears for a while, but you shall reap in joy: and, though you may now go on your way weeping, yet, if so be you bear precious seed, you shall doubtless come again with joy, bringing your sheaves with you.

8

INSTITUTION AND END OF THE SABBATH.

REV. J. H. EVANS, A. M.

JOHN STREET CHAPEL, KING'S ROAD, NOVEMBER 25, 1827.

"And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it. he had rested from all his work which God created and made."-GENESIS, ii. 2, 3.

ALTHOUGH wise, and good, and holy men, are, with very few exceptions, agreed, touching the obligation of the Lord's day, yet there does exist, notwithstanding, a great variety of opinion among us. Some appear, almost to legalize the Sabbath-they consider it in a Jewish point of view, and seem to rise no higher than the consideration of the fourth commandment. There are some who appear to go to something of an opposite extreme, and, as they are convinced the Jewish dispensation is null and void-that we are no longer under it-that we are free from that yoke of bondage, and yet, not only are we free, but have cause to rejoice in our liberty-so they appear to think, that every day is to the Christian a Sabbath, and that there is no command in the present day to God's saints, higher than the example that the Apostle gives in the Acts. There are some who ask us, What proof have you for the alteration of the day? And with regard to the obligation of that sort of service, which a Christian man is constrained to give it, there exists no small difference.

That this is a subject of much importance, must be evident to every thinking mind; because, a conscientious regard of this day, is connected with the institusion itself. And if we look to the Sabbath on no higher grounds, than its Deing an institution of our country-of its being right and suitable in itself, without any express command of the Lord concerning it, then are we most certainly at issue on the subject: so that, the subject contains in it a vast body of truth. And when so many of God's people have differed about it—and immediately after the reformation, it was a subject that excited no little inquiry, and there was a long and severe controversy carried on by God's people on the point-remembering all this, how great need do I stand in, of the support and illumination of the Holy Spirit, that I may be kept from any fond and foolish conceits of my own knowledge; but that with all meekness, and yet, with all decision of mind, I may speak to you the things that I assuredly believe, and see recorded in God's sacred word.

Certainly, the fact is, there never was a period in which, while the saints of God are called upon to meet together from day to day, and express their allegiance to Him whom they allow to be their Lord and Master-never was a period in which greater profanation did take place, than at the present day. We have

had, at least, that evil brought over to us from the Continent-that is plain to any man who has resided in London ten years: he may see, every Lord's day, a great and increasing profanation of that day: he will see it in the unwillingly half-closed shutter: he will see it in the labour that men take to evidence this as their principle, "If shame did not prevent, this day should be to me as nothing; but because I am under some restraint of law and character, therefore I dare not do it." Who will not go through the streets and make this reflection as he goes? What man that has his eye on the Gospel view of the Sabbathwho that looks at Jesus as the great substance of this day, its beginning, its middle, its end, to whom the eye should be specially and peculiarly directed in his great work wherein he resteth-who that so regarded the cross of Immanuel, will not feel this, and suffer this persuasion to enter his mind as he passes our streets? I earnestly implore your prayers that God may give you and me a right and just spirit with regard to the subject.

Consider, first, who it was instituted the Sabbath; secondly, the continuation of that institution up to the present moment; thirdly, the great end and object of the Sabbath; and fourthly, what is that sort of obedience to it, which a Christian ought, under the spirit of liberty and adoption, to desire to give to it.

First, WHO WAS IT INSTITUTED THE SABBATH? When was it instituted? I said in the commencement, there are many who rise no higher than the consideration of the fourth commandment. Therein I think, with all affection and remembrance of my own weakness, therein I think they err. If that were so (though there were an argument springing out of that,) one might be led to consider, as we are not under the Jewish dispensation, how it is we know it to be the Lord's will, that that should be continued to us? But we find the early institution of the Sabbath in my text, before the fall of man. As the Lord ended his work on the seventh day (not that he worked, or completed his work, on the seventh day—it was finished on the sixth day he had actually finished his work on the sixth day) as the Lord ended his work on the seventh day, he blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: he caused it to be a day to which he had a peculiar favour, and he set it apart for a holy use, not to be used by him, but to be used for him, and set apist for all his creatures, for his own purpose, and for his own worship. Exodus, xxxi. 16, 17, "The children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout her generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days," &c. It sets forth the divine complacency— how he looked back on the work he had finished, and how he was refreshed with the contemplation of it. And this gives us the true idea of the first Sabbath, when the Lord rested from his work: he set it apart, that his creatures might rest also; that they might rest in Him who accomplished it; that they might be taken from the work to the Worker, from the gift to the Giver, from the creation to the Creator, and from all the vast display it made of his perfections, to the contemplation of those perfections. He set it apart; it was his own act. If this be not the institution of the Lord's, whose is it? And if it be not his, we are as wrong as we should be, were we to blow the trumpet. It would be quite as absurd, quite an act of will-worship, for all the churches to acknowledge any obligation to meet once in seven days, or to abstain from any

work on the seventh day—it would be quite as much an act of will-worship, as to blow the trumpet in our pulpits. For, no one has a right, no, not the Apostles, to make laws-they were not legislators-we have but one legislator -not Paul, not Peter: we regard but one legislator, and that is, the Lord Jesus Christ. If we have merely, the institution of our country, or if it merely springs from a consciousness of its usefulness and propriety, we seem to be as a ship without a compass. Without a personal demand on it, it would cease to be observed altogether. It seems evident to me, that the same God that rested on that day, took complacency in it. And although Adam had not then laboured, there was a delight in God, in the contemplation of the works of God -of that God whose work it was. Therefore, there was a great end of the Sabbath in him: for the cessation of bodily labour, is but a means to gain an end; which end is, contemplation, our rest in God, our admiration of the divine perfections, our complacency in him who had great complacency in his work.

It does appear a marvellous thing how any one can trace up the institution from Exodus, and not see that here it stands, laid down in man's state of primeval innocency. In that chapter, in which we read of the promised seed, there is as clear declaration of the institution of the Sabbath, as there is of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. If the promise of the coming seed is not clear, then this is not clear: if the one is clear, the other is quite as clear. God set it apart for himself, for a holy use, for the contemplation of, or the resting in that work in which God rested. And I desire you once more to remember the passing observation, that if the Sabbath had not the God of heaven for its institutor, we, at the present day, should be left without a clear precept; and all our observation of it would be but will-worship—the command of men, and not the command of God. It would be man's duty to oppose it, and to acknowledge, that there is no lawgiver but the great God of heaven and earth.

It was

Secondly, observe, THE CONTINUATION OF THE INSTITUTION. nstituted before man's transgression: and I have endeavoured to point out, what was the intention of it then. I do not say that the Christian Sabbath is not a more spiritual and sublime one. Many hints are thrown out, which prove that the patriarchs lived in the observation of it. When one has plain truth, it seems waste of time to go to a mere probable truth. From Exodus, xvi. 25, it is clear enough, that before the giving of the Law from Mount Sinai, the Jews were living in obedience to that command. "And Moses said, Eat that to-day; for to-day is a Sabbath unto the Lord: to-day ye shall not find it in the field." Here was the gathering of the manna, and they were commanded not to gather it on the Sabbath day, because that was a Sabbath unto the Lord.

I need not remind you of its renewal in Exodus, xx., and how it is renewed. And there is one remarkable thing with regard to it-How comes it to be placed among the ten commandments? The commands are either positive or moral. A positive command is that which has nothing in itself that marks it to be right, but merely because God declares it to be so: but a moral precept is that which has its own suitableness within its own bosom. Now, see how that first commandment begins: "I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other Gods before me." Did the Lord bring his people out of the land of

bondage"-did that constitute the truth, "Thou shalt have no other Gods before me?" It would have been just as true without that. His delivering out of the land of Egypt, did not make that true that was not true before. Why is is placed among the ten commandments? Why is it the Lord wrote them out on tables of stone? Why did he himself speak them to Moses? They were laid up in the ark, and nothing was laid up in the ark but these ten commandments, and these are but an extract out of the Law. It would have been just as true if there had been no Moses, no Mount Sinai, no house of bondage: true, because it has its truth in God himself, not at all connected with any circumstances of any kind; but true, because God had declared it from the beginning; because, though there is something positive in the setting apart of one day, yet there is something moral in it, because we are led by that law to give up ourselves to the Living God, to meditate on, and to delight in, his perfections, to give up ourselves to his glory. Though the appointing one day out of seven was a moral command, yet it was also positive: it was arranged in the garden of Eden before Satan tempted man to fall. Therefore it had its truth, not in Mount Sinai, not because Moses gave it, but from the Living God himself. And there it stands at an amazing distance from all ceremonies and all shadows. It sets forth a great truth, I allow-our rest in Jesus: but the setting apart a day of rest was no shadow; it was God's claim on his people. Your bodies are mine, your souls are mine, and you shall give what you owe to me.

Isaiah, i. 13, 14, Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting." Colossians, ii. 16, 17, "Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days: which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ." Those Sabbath-days, or feasts, or fasts, week-days, or month-days, or year-days, were called Sabbaths; and are spoken of repeatedly in the old dispensation. And the great jealousy of the Apostle was, their bringing in these things when Christ was the substance. Now, remember the previous observation, that the fourth commandment was but an extract out of what God gave to Adam; it has no more to do, as it regards its substance, than Moses has to do with your or my salvation: it has no more to do with the legal dispensation, as deriving its existence from the legal dispensation, than "Thou shalt have no other Gods before me," stands on the foundation of the old dispensation. In Isaiah, lviii. 13, 14, we see the nature, as I consider, of the Christian Sabbath: "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:" not the mere drudgery, as you have done it not the mere legal observance, as you have done it but as honouring the Lord. It is remarkable that in Isaiah, lvi. 6, where the Prophet is speaking of the calling of the Gentiles, "The sons of the stranger that join themselves to the Lord, to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servant, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it," there is a continuation of the direction to look forward to the Sabbath of rest. In Matthew, xxiv., where our Lord desires his disciples to pray that their flight