of

your

This subject has been, throughout, of a nature so directly practical, that I do not feel it necessary to enlarge in the way of what is usually called improvement. There is one point, however, which I conceive to be of essential importance, for preventing all self-deception in any of my hearers, and so of delivering my own soul from the guilt of their blood. The point to which I advert is, the necessity of considering the observance of the Sabbath, not as a mere insulated duty, but as a TEST OF CHARACTER. I know nothing more important than this. The manner in which you spend your Sabbaths is an index to the state hearts towards God. It affords a fair and satisfactory criterion of the security or the danger of your present condition, and of your prospects for eternity. This is a light, indeed, in which we ought to regard every particular description of trespass. We have but done our work by halves, when we have convinced any one that he has been wrong in this particular, and have even induced him to reform. We wish every one, whose conscience tells him that he has been profaning or neglecting his Sabbaths, idling or secularizing their sacred hours, to carry his self-examination a little deeper. This is not a mere defect in his character, requiring to be remedied. It is one among many indications that his "heart is not right with God;" that he is yet unrenewed in the spirit of his mind. -We do not call upon him, therefore, merely to set about amending this defect, and doing better for the future:-we call upon him to lay to heart the solemn words of the Saviour " Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God!" There is something more necessary for sinful creatures,-crea

tures who have not merely broken particular precepts, but whose nature is in a state of opposition to the very principles of the divine law, a state of " enmity against God," —there is something more necessary for such creatures, than the mere relinquishment of this or the other evil, and the performance of this or the other duty. There must be a change of heart. The divine promise must be fulfilled, "A new heart will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh." Without this, the mere external reformation of a particular fault may leave you as far from God as ever. It will be but whiting the sepulchre. It will be but giving the aspect of life to death; colouring the cheek of the corpse, while no vital pulse beats in the heart. Let a man's reputation be ever so high, for sobriety, integrity, and charity, as these virtues are understood in the world: his heart may still be under the dominion of a deep-seated ungodliness. God may not be in all his thoughts. And of the continuance of this alienation from God, there cannot be a more direct and conclusive indication than want of reverence for the Lord's day; an evil, indeed, which, from its nature, can never stand alone: it will invariably be found in union with the neglect of other duties that are properly religious, and especially of those private exercises of personal devotion, in which the renewed Men may think little of it. keeping among the virtues. may say, that if they give every man his due, no one has a right to interfere with the use which they make of their time. Be it so. But has not GOD this right? What

soul finds its chief delight. They may not class Sabbath

They may think, and they

if He shall remind you, that the time has been his, not yours?—that you have been alienating from him what should have been spent to his glory; and, while you have been boasting of giving every man his due, have been, in this and in many other things, withholding his due from HIM?—and what, too, if he should add to this the charge of ingratitude, in that you have ungenerously abused his goodness, in perverting to other purposes the time given you by him, for attending to your best and highest interests? Say what you will of it, your neglect and profanation of his day is one of the clearest signs that your hearts are not his; and that all your boasted virtues are destitute of the very first principle of whatever deserves You must be "renewed in the spirit of your mind." The "love of God must be shed abroad in your hearts." While it is otherwise, your very virtues are ungodly. They cannot find acceptance with him, whose first requisition is, that the heart be given to himself. This, and this alone, will sanctify your virtues. It will put God into them. And you will then make it manifest that they are fulfilled from a new principle, by associating with your duties to men those higher duties, which, before you left out of account in the estimate of your char acter, but which now you see to be

the name.

entitled to

the first Then, in the private

place, the duties you owe to God. and public exercises of devotion, you will come to Him as your "exceeding joy." Deeply sensible that your profanation of his day has not been the mere omission of a duty, but an awful result and indication of the alienation of your hearts from Himself, you will bewail the precious time you have lost, implore forgiveness through the aton

ing blood of his Son, and seek his grace to redeem the past by the faithful improvement of the future. Then will you understand and feel the full import of the text,"THE SABBATH WAS MADE FOR MAN." You will see the love of God in it. You will feel it a privilege and va pleasure; and you will keep it, with joy and persevering constancy, as at once a testimony for God, and a means of benefit to your own souls. Your Sabbaths on earth will give you foretastes of the everlasting Sabbath of heaven, and will make you progressively meet for its holy exercises and joys. The man who relishes not God's Sabbaths here, is deceiving himself, if ever he talks of his hope of heaven. He may call by this name some vague undefined expectation of a heaven of his own but the heaven of the Bible, the only existing heaven, is not the object of his hope; for the blessings which are to consti tute its felicity, are not the objects of his desire; and we can never hope for that which we regard with dislike and aversion. He who has no enjoyment in communion with God on earth, has not a heart to enjoy heaven. If to such a man the Sabbath of a day be a weariness, what would be the Sabbath of eternity?

It is a striking thought of the poet,* that the man who has attained his seventieth year has lived ten years of Sabbaths. Let all my hearers remember, that in every period of life there is the same proportion. Let them seriously ask themselves, how they have been using the sabbatical time with which a long-suffering God has been favouring them; and what account they will be able to give of it

If

to Him, in the day of final account and retribution. hitherto you have been wasting it, O waste no more of it--not another hour; it is precious. Let this very day be the beginning of a change. Now, even now, let your preparation commence for the everlasting Sabbath. And how, do you ask me, is it to be begun? There is but one way:-by coming to God, as sinners conscious of guilt and impurity, feeling their helplessness, and seeking fitness for heaven, through the peace-speaking blood of the Lamb, and the renewing grace of the Spirit. You must, with entire self-renunciation, make HIM the ground of your confidence, who "finished his work, and entered into his rest;" and you must look to the fulness that is in Him, for the spiritual supplies that are needful to "stablish you, and keep you from evil," and to bring you to his heavenly kingdom.

And, Christians,-mark your duty. Mark the apostle's practical improvement of this subject to you. It is contained in Heb. iv. 9-11. "There remaineth, therefore, a Sabbath-keeping to the people of God; for he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. Let us labour, therefore, to enter into that rest," (the rest into which Jesus has entered) "lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.” And what is this labour? It is "the work of faith: "—it is "the labour of love." It is the persevering effort of practical service, of which faith and love are the principles and springs. It is not the labour of proud self-confidence, as if heaven were to be won by any merits of your own; it is the labour of humble dependance on grace, through the merits of the Redeemer. Your faith worketh by love.