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DISCOURSE VII.

The sanctification of the Sabbath-continued. On the various modes of

Sabbath profanation.

Same Text,

Page

197

DISCOURSE VIII.

On the benefits accruing from the due observance of the Sabbath, to individuals, families, churches, and civil communities; and the evils resulting from its neglect and profanation.

Same Text,

230

DISCOURSE IX.

On the means of checking the profanation, and promoting the due observ

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MARK 11. 27.-" The Sabbath was made for man."

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DISCOURSE I.

GENESIS II. 1—3.

"Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 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."

SEVERAL successive meetings have been recently held in this city, by a number of ministers of the gospel and other Christians, for the purpose of conversing on the subject of the profanation of the Sabbath, and of consulting as to the most eligible means of counteracting the progress of this growing evil. I shall not trouble you with any detail of the various proposals suggested, and partially or wholly adopted, on these occasions. The one only needs to be mentioned, in fulfilment of which I now address you. It was resolved, that the ministers of Christ, of all denominations, in the city and neighbourhood, should be requested to call the attention of their respective congregations to the subject simultaneously; so as, if possible, by the very fact of their bearing a concurrent testimony respecting it, by previous agreement, upon the same day,

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a general impulse might be given to the public mind, and a feeling excited, congenial with their own, at once of regret for the spreading mischief, and of solicitude for the proper application of the needful remedies. What these should be, belongs to a future part of the discussion, which I shall not now anticipate. For it is not my intention to confine myself to a single discourse, and that discourse restricted to the one topic of Sabbath profanation. I mean to enter pretty largely, in a series of Sermons, into the general subject of the obligation and observance of the weekly sabbatical rest. It would be preposterous, to go at once to the consideration of the mode of observing the day, till we have satisfactorily ascertained the scriptural authority for observing it at all. This authority I do not wish to assume; because it has been disputed; and because I have never been fully satisfied with the grounds on which the obligation, under the Christian economy, has usually been made to rest. Not that these grounds are either untenable, or insufficient ; but that, in my apprehension, there are additional grounds, still stronger and more direct, which, though they have been adverted to by some advocates of the Christian Sabbath, have been overlooked by others, and have by none had that degree of weight attached to them, to which they seem to be entitled.

In saying this, I should wish to be understood as referring both to the obligation of the day, and to the manner of its observance. On both points, it is of essential importance to ascertain scriptural principles. Our rebukes of Sabbath-profanation can come with comparatively feeble power and partial effect upon the conscience, when

we have left unsettled questions and unsatisfied doubts and surmises in the mind, with regard to the obligation of observance :-and even when we may be supposed to have settled the obligation on sufficient grounds; we may find it exceedingly difficult to draw a correct line between observance and profanation in various departments of our admonitions to duty and cautions against sin,—and shall be in danger of leaving, on the one hand, sources of superstitious and gloomy fearfulness, and, on the other, jesuitical excuses for laxity of disposition, and convenient outlets for consciences that are beset by worldly temptations,

unless we can, either from direct precepts or from approved examples, establish some general principle or principles, capable of extensive and easy application to particular cases.

It is a point of fact disputed by none, that the seventhday Sabbath was observed by the Jewish people, under the ancient economy; and by none who believe that economy to have been divine is it doubted, that amongst them it was not a self-authorized celebration, but an institute of Jehovah. One great question, therefore, is— Was it peculiar to that people, or was it, in its origin and obligation, common to mankind? Did the observance commence with the divine legation of Moses, or did it commence at the time referred to in our text? Did the obligation terminate with the Mosaic economy, or did it remain in force under the Christian? And, if we should ascertain it to have begun at creation, and to have continued under Christianity, what authority have we for observing, as our sabbatical rest, the first day of the week, instead of the seventh? These are questions, to which a

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