law as he found it. Works of necessity and charity must not be multiplied without just cause; much less must works of vanity, sloth, carelessness, be performed under the cloke of them. No rule can be laid down for others. Conscience, and a sincere desire to glorify God, must determine. Let the main design of the day, our sanctification, and the practical duties of it, as it respects public and private, domestic and personal devotion, be performed in subserviency thereto, and WORKS OF neCESSARY CHARITY, (for such is the real bearing of the exception, as supported by our Lord's example,') will not be unduly undertaken.

And need I stop here to refute the mere evasion, which would allow the obligation of the Lord's day as to public worship, and deny it as to the remaining duties of the institution? What is it enough merely to worship God for one meagre hour or two, and then resign ourselves to the world and its cares? What! can public worship be celebrated with any spirituality of mind, without preparatory and subsequent meditation and prayer? What! are the family devotions of other days to be discontinued on the day when they ought to be enlarged and raultiplied? What! is it the Sabbath MORNING that we are to sanctify, or the Sabbath EVENING only, and not the SABBATH-DAY, the whole period from the close of the last working day till the dawn of the next? Yes; the whole day is not too long for God, for Christ, for the soul: if the entire command is not complied with, none is.

Or need I stop to enumerate those various secular works, which are unlawful on. this day of the Lord? Need I expose the miserable sophistry, which substitutes a mere change of worldly engagements for the holy duties of divine prayer and praise ?-What, if I close my office or my shop, and open my drawer of accounts, and write letters of affairs, am I sanctifying the Sabbath? What, if I withdraw from the exchange, or the courts of law, into the chamber of consultation, or the secret room of

1 Dr. Humphrey's Essays, p. 43.

settlements and bargains; is this keeping the Lord's day? What! I employ not my labourers on Sunday, but I pay them their wages, and almost oblige them to make their purchases on that sacred day; and is this to keep it holy? Or, I quit the hurry of the city or town, for the mere sensual indulgence of the suburban retreat-I “eat, and drink, and am merry;" I collect around me friends as thoughtless as myself-I employ my servants in the unnecessary toil of preparing luxurious meals-I go from the church to the ride, the garden, the park, the pleasureground, the river. I walk over my farm or my lands, I arrange for the business of the following week, I plunge into literary or scientific reading, I lose my devotional feelings in the abominations of a Sunday-newspaperand this I call religion-this I designate as the sanctification of the Lord's day!

But indeed, Christian brethren, the duties of this holy season are so spiritual, so opposite to the carnal and earthly tendencies of human nature, so surrounded by temptations and suggestions on all hands, that there is not one of us but may discern much to be amended, improved, omitted, supplied. Our order of engagements is incomplete, our care of our family wanting in vigilance, our forethought drowsy and treacherous, our interruptions of religious exercises too frequent and too long. There is much that admits of alteration. Let us look well into our family rules, family habits, family hours, family religion, family attendance on the public worship of God, and we shall discern lamentable marks of decay and lukewarmness-we shall discern many things, which, if not dishonourable to the Sabbath, are at least not so honourable to it as they might be. But this leads me to consider,

III. That in order to keep holy the Lord's day, we must carry THE TRUE SPIRIT OF THE CHRISTIAN DISPENSATION INTO THESE DUTIES. We must not celebrate a Jewish, but a Christian festival. We must imbibe that spirit of rest and delight in God, that sense of refreshment and repose, in his more immediate service,

which the liberty of the gospel breathes, and without some degree of which we can never discharge these duties aright.

The general habit of mind cannot be better described than in the words of the psalmist: "How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts; my soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God—a day in thy courts is better than a thousand; I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness." 1 Or again, "One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the fair beauty of the Lord, and inquire in his temple." Or again, "My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips." 3

This is the language of delight, of repose of soul in the duties of religion. Join to this the particular discoveries of the New Testament, as to the way of access in the blood of Christ, and by the influences of the Spirit, and we have the complete description of the devotional temper.

In like manner, the holy prophets-" Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the Son of man that layeth hold of it-that chooseth the things that please me—that join themselves to the Lord, to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord-even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Love, choice of God, joy in the house of prayer, stand in complete contrast with a yoke, a burden, a mere task, as too many represent the duties of religion to be.

But the most ample account of the spirit which should pervade the sabbatical duties, is in a passage which, in common with the preceding, we have formerly quoted for another purpose; 'If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and

1 Ps. lxxxiv. 1, 2, 10.

3 Ps. lxiii. 5.

2 Ps. xxvii. 4.
4 Isaiah lvi. 2, 7.

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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.” Here, the spirit of the right observance of the Lord's day is expressed in a most striking phrase " If thou call the Sabbath A DELIGHT, THE HOLY OF THE LORD, HONOURABLE, AND SHALT HONOUR HIM." We are to esteem it honourable, above all other days; we are peculiarly to honour Him, whose bounty created us, whose longsuffering has preserved us, and whose unsearchable goodness has provided for us a way of eternal redemption. Then joy will fill our hearts. The glory of our divine Lord, his majesty, his sovereignty over us, his infinite excellency, his continued benefits, his omnipotent, neverfailing providence, will possess our minds; and we shall feel as the Sabbath morn returns, that we are going to the palace of the great King, that we are approaching the abode of a heavenly Father, that we are going up to God, to "God our exceeding joy." From this temper will flow the appropriate dispositions which should govern the details of the day. The chief of these is, spiritual repose of heart in God, in opposition to earthly, sensual, intellectual pleasure" If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing THY PLEASURE, on my holy day." Here is the main difficulty: so long as sensual repose, instead of spiritual; intellectual effort, instead of devotional; the pleasure of the mere appetites, instead of the pleasure of the soul in God, is the governing principle in our religion, the Sabbath will never be kept aright. A change in our taste and estimate of things must first touch the main springs of happiness. Then we shall cease from "doing our pleasure;" and shall willingly aim at doing the pleasure of God. Amusement, recreation, pastimes, indolent repose, satisfaction in worldly company, worldly society, worldly banquets, will cease; and new pleasures will be sought for in the pleasures of devotion, of faith, of hope, of communion with

1 Isaiah lviii. 13, 14.

God. Then will the Sabbath be a "6 delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable;" and we shall HONOUR GOD in it. And thus will our pleasure, ways, words, works, be newly directed. Instead of "doing our own ways," we shall choose the ways that God commands, and occupy the Sabbath with its appropriate duties. Instead of " finding our own pleasure," we shall find God's, or rather, shall perceive a new and more elevated pleasure in his service; instead of "speaking our own words," we shall order our conversation to the glory of God, and the edification of our neighbour. Perhaps there are few sins more common, and more insidious than that to which these last words refer, "speaking our own words," that is, secular conversation on the Sunday-news, inquiries, discussions on matters literary, political, philosophical. Thus all impression of spiritual things fades from the mind; the seed of the word is lost; the ordinary associations and habits of the six days' labours are insensibly resumed, and the Holy Spirit is quenched and grieved.

I need not add here, that the reading of Sunday newspapers is directly in contradiction to the whole spirit which should be cultivated on that blessed day. It encourages the most flagrant violation of the Sabbath, in those who print, who sell, who circulate these monstrous productions too commonly filled with matter of the most licentious and sceptical tendency; and more injurious and contaminating, from the day on which they are disseminated. They totally unfit the mind for the religious duties before it; or rather, they make those duties impracticable.

But how delightful is the Sabbath, when occupied as it should be! Can any picture be more inviting, than that of a family, a neighbourhood, a parish, honouring the day of God with cheerful and grateful hearts-meditating on that sanctification which is the great design of the day of rest-filling up its hours with the various and important exercises of public and private devotion-and imbuing every act of duty with the Christian temperwith the filial spirit-the spirit not " of bondage again to