render themselves to the Saviour, and prepare to be your companions in eternal glory? O, arise to this employment with diligence and devotedness, that you may avoid the bitter fruit of neglect, and that the worst of blood-guiltiness may never be charged upon you!

You have all private duties to perform. To meditate on the sublime events the Christian sabbath commemorates, and the sublime prospects it reveals, to be instant in prayer for a blessing to rest on all the engagements undertaken by yourselves and others, to be serious and searching in self-examination as to your spiritual state and hopes, these present employments which none can overlook without an inexcusable guilt. The secret chamber should every day be a spot of retirement for the spirit, that, apart from the tumult of the world, it may hold communion with its God; but the sabbath gives additional reasons to frequent it. Those reasons will be at once understood from our statements as to the nature of the day; we merely observe, further, that the other occupations of the sabbath can be but little worth, if there be not fervour of personal devotion; and that little hope can be entertained of his conversion of heart, who exhibits the flame of his religious profession only in public, and yet preserves no fire to warm the closet and the heart.

The particulars which have now been succes

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sively pressed on your attention, comprehend the due consecration of the "Lord's day." Men who find their pleasure in alienation from God, may be disposed to allege that the requirements are too strict and arbitrary, and may despise them as the offspring of " puritanical hypocrisy;" but we are confident that we have gone not one tittle beyond the spirit of the gospel, and we reckon securely on the approval of all to whom religion is a delight. We are deeply convinced that a hallowed sabbath-a sabbath universally devoted to the honour of Him who gave it, would extinguish many enormous evils now powerful and rife, and would pour incalculable blessings on individuals, on families, and on the world. Let others patronize the scandalous laxity of the age if they will; be it ours to reprove and to oppose it; and, trembling lest we should assist to perpetuate the curse upon our species, and anxious to promote the extended enjoyment of the purest and very highest pleasures of which human nature is susceptible, let us all display and enforce the example of devoted obedience to the precious law of the Almighty. Again the emphatic command is urged as the confirmation of what has been desired:-dare not to resist it, determine to fulfil it-" REMEMBER THE SABBATH DAY TO KEEP IT HOLY."

There is another view in which the Christian sabbath is yet to be contemplated, namely—

III. AS A DAY OF CHRISTIAN GLADNESS AND

ANTICIPATION.

Gladness, on this blessed season, must inspire every Christian mind. You have heard already how David prophetically uttered the emotions. of the church," We will rejoice and be glad in it;" and by a contemplation of what the Lord's day includes, such emotions will always be produced.—A source of joy exists in the events it commemorates; we reflect, not only on the wondrous act of creation, but on the higher achievements of redemption; and now we recall in delightful remembrance, the exaltation of the Lord Jesus after his atonement, and the gracious descent of the Holy Spirit, occurrences essentially identified with the security and salvation of our immortal souls.-A source of joy exists in the influence possessed by the sabbath on the world. It is a time when man, mercifully permitted to breathe from labour, may resume an erect attitude, and look upward to heaven; a time which eminently tends to refine the habits, to preserve the institutions, and to promote the civilization, of society; a time which imposes a check on the progress of depravity, recalls the creature to the Creator, bars out the entrance of idolatry, and perpetuates the knowledge of the living and true God; a time when the souls of the faithful receive from the divine word the strong consolations of celestial grace, and become nerved

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afresh to fight the battles of the Lord; time which is specially honoured in the conversion of sinners from the error of their ways, and will secure the diffusion of truth, until the Son shall have "the heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession." And need we justify the title of such a time as this, to be a time of transcendent gladness to the enlightened heart, when the Christian is to rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory? When we survey the appointments of God, we feel and acknowledge this to be among the best and dearest of them all.

Anticipation necessarily arises out of the nature of the institution. The sabbath is emphatically, as it always has been, a type. It is a permanent emblematic representation of events not yet fulfilled, of periods not yet arrived, of happiness not yet enjoyed. In the Jewish age, men had to consider their weekly rest as the symbol of their year of jubilee, and of the spiritual repose to be enjoyed under the benign dispensation of the gospel; and we, living under that gospel, are also taught to consider it as the symbol of future times and blessings which are transcendent and glorious.

We anticipate, from the rest of the sabbath, that age so long and earnestly desired, when religion shall have completed her triumphs, and established her reign over all the nations of the

earth. "The Lord's day" is a distinct memorial of the period, when the latter glory shall break through the clouds, and diffuse universal light and universal peace; when all human dwellings shall be ransomed from the domination of error, and shall inherit sweet repose from the strife and tumult of evil passion; and when the incense of pure worship shall be offered to the living God from every kindred and tongue and people. Justly has that blessed era been called-" The sabbath of the world;" and well may every Christian, on this its oft returning emblem, which brings it in prophetic vision before him, dilate with desire that its advent may bless creation, and wrestle in prayer with his God, that " the whole earth may be filled with his glory!"

But we anticipate also, from the rest of the sabbath, our personal entrance into a nobler world, and our participation in the rest of heaven. Of that scene of ultimate felicity, this institution has always been intended to remind the members of the spiritual church. Heaven is the final, perfect, and eternal sabbath. The apostle Paul has beautifully expressed the fact, after statements as to the other emblematical objects" There remaineth therefore a rest"a sabbatism, a rest as on the sabbath-" for the people of God."* From this day, then, we contemplate the purity of heaven, the repose of heaven, the congregation of heaven, the worship

* Heb. iv. 9.