Before entering on the question
that we intend more particularly to discuss, there are some
remarks that we deem it necessary to make on the tone and general
character of Dr. Vaughan’s pamphlet. And in the first
place, we were struck with the entire absence of scripture proof
in support of the views propounded. Assertions are made of
the most sweeping character, and inferences are thence drawn,
involving matters of the highest moment; and yet no passage of
scripture is adduced in support of these assertions. Thus
we are told “that not only the fourth commandment, but the
whole decalogue has ceased to be, as such, the rule of our
life.” But the authority for this declaration is
no-where given. If this doctrine be plainly taught in the
New Testament, surely we should be informed where it is to be
found.
Another thing that we could not help remarking, was the manner
in which the authority of the Old Testament is repudiated.
“With reference to the observance of the Sabbath, and to
every point of moral duty, the appeal now lies primarily to the
scriptures of the New Testament, and secondarily to any other
records which we may possess of the practice of the apostolical
age.” How different is the mind of Dr. Vaughan from
that of the Apostle Paul on this important point. The
Apostle tells us (alluding more especially to the writings of the
Old Testament), that all scripture is “profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,
that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all
good works.” Dr. Vaughan tells us in effect, that our
rule of practice is the New Testament and tradition!
Again Dr. V. condemns what he designates “a low and
slavish spirit,” in those who wish “to have an
express law to shew for our Christian Sunday.”
But we would ask, whether an express law makes the obedience of
love less sincere, less warm, less free and spontaneous?
St. John tells us, “this is the love of God, that we keep
his commandments, and his commandments are not
grievous.” In a matter of such moment we feel bound
to follow the opinion of the inspired Apostle.
Dr. Vaughan is of opinion, that “if we found even a
human institution, which testified throughout Christendom,
by a speaking sign, by an act at once self-denying and
beneficent, our faith in realities unseen and future; even
this would bind us to its observance.” And yet
when we find in the word of God, a plain command to keep holy the
Sabbath-day, we are told that we are not legally bound to observe
it, and that a wish to have a law to that effect, bespeaks
“a low and slavish spirit.” If, however, the
express will of God does not lead men to keep the Sabbath, we
cannot conceive of any other motive, by which (on Christian
principles) they will be induced to observe it. In
man’s present condition, liberty without law soon
degenerates into licentiousness; and no law but that of God, can
so restrain and regulate men, as to preserve real religious
freedom. Repeal the laws by which life and property are
protected, and try to persuade men to be good and virtuous, from
a love of virtue, or from a sense of gratitude for the kindness
and beneficence of their rulers; and we should soon see the
necessity and benefit of our laws. And so it will
be found, that the religious observance of the Sabbath, will soon
give place to a general neglect of God’s house, and to
practical atheism, if once the people are persuaded, that there
is no divine command to keep holy the Sabbath-day.
But while the authority of the Old Testament is thus
repudiated, the Rev. Doctor “thinks” he
“sees” (what other people may be blind to, and
about which he himself is not quite certain—so poor
a guide is man’s intellect in the absence of a plain
command from God,) “indications from the very earliest
days, of which the Scriptures contain the record, of man’s
need of a periodical rest, and of God’s purpose to secure
it to him.” He believes “that it is essential
to the well-being of his bodily and mental
structure.” He believes that it “is yet more
essential to the well-being of his immortal spirit, to his
education for that state in which earthly life
issues.” He believes that this was “foreseen by
man’s Creator, and provided for by the disposer of
man’s heart.” And yet he does not believe that
God has adopted the only means of securing this all-important
blessing permanently to his creatures. Once, indeed, for a
few hundred years he made it imperative upon a small portion of
the human race, to keep an appointment so essential to
man’s present and eternal welfare. But when by the
mission of his Son, and the publication of the gospel, he
manifested his marvellous love to the whole human race, then, by
an unaccountable and inexplicable mode of procedure, he set aside
this appointment, and left him to the dictates of his own will,
or to the selfishness or caprice of those under whose authority
he might happen to be! All was thenceforth to be left to
man’s mental perception and moral sense! [7] Is this view consistent with God’s
goodness? Is it consistent with his general dealing with
men under the present dispensation? God has provided a
Saviour for all men. He has commanded the gospel to be
preached to the whole human race. He has commanded all men
every where to receive the gospel. And yet he has abolished
the only command by which an opportunity can be permanently
secured to all men, to become acquainted with the truths of the
gospel, and be made wise unto salvation! Is this worthy of
God? A human parent would not withhold from his children,
explicit instruction on any point that he deemed essential to
their welfare. He would not leave them to conjecture, but
would tell them plainly what was for their good. Is God
less wise or less good than man?
The Rev. Doctor evidently feels some difficulty in reconciling
his views with the teaching of the Church of England. For
after speaking of the privilege and blessing of Sabbath
observance, as if conscious of the dilemma in which his
principles placed him, he proceeds to ask, “And shall those
who look back through long years upon their frequent failures to
improve the blessing, see no reason for the confession which
bewails their past neglect of it, and the prayer which asks help
to honour it (i.e. the blessing) hereafter?”
Now we confess that we cannot help feeling, as we think most
must feel, that this attempt to escape from the appearance of
inconsistency in using the prayer alluded to, is most
unsatisfactory. The prayer to which allusion is here made,
is offered by the whole congregation immediately on the reading
of the fourth commandment by the Minister. Its language is,
“Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep
this law.” And the meaning and intent of the prayer
are thus expressed in the rubric at the head of the commandments
in the Communion Service: “The Priest shall rehearse the
ten commandments; and the people shall, after every commandment,
ask God mercy for their transgression thereof for the time past,
and grace to keep the same for the time to come.”
This, then, is the meaning of the prayer; and in this there is
necessarily implied a recognition of the moral obligation of the
commandment, with regret for its violation, as well as a prayer
for pardon, and for help to keep it in future. But is this
the meaning which Dr. Vaughan attaches to the language of this
prayer? No, with his views, it must be something of this
sort: “Have mercy upon us for not improving this blessing
in time past, and incline our hearts to honour this blessing in
future.” Surely if the fourth commandment be no
longer in force, to use this prayer is to confess guilt where no
law has been transgressed, to ask pardon where no offence has
been committed, and to seek aid to amend what is not legally
wrong.
Nor is this the only practical difficulty connected with the
views in question. We presume it is the duty of the Masters
of our public schools, as well as of the Clergy generally, to
teach their charge the Church Catechism. But in the Church
Catechism are the following questions and answers:—
Question. You said that your
godfathers and godmothers did promise for you, that you should
keep God’s commandments. Tell me how many there
be.
Answer. Ten.
Question. Which be they?
Answer. The same which God spake in the twentieth
chapter of Exodus, &c.
Here is a plain acknowledgment that the ten commandments are
still in force, and that we are bound by our baptismal vows to
keep them. Dr. Vaughan affirms that they have “ceased
to be our rule of life.” How can these conflicting
opinions be reconciled? or how can those persons consistently use
the formularies of our church, who so directly contradict her
teaching?
Having thus noticed more generally what we consider the
unscriptural opinions set forth in the pamphlet under review, we
shall now proceed to consider more particularly the Sabbath
question. This is confessedly one of the great questions of
the day. So momentous, indeed, are its bearings on the
temporal and spiritual well-being of men, and so intimately is it
connected with the worship and honour of God, that its importance
can scarcely be overrated. If God is to be publicly
acknowledged and worshiped in his own world—if men are to
be instructed in the principles of revealed religion, and trained
to habits of virtue and christian love—if personal,
domestic, social, and national happiness is to be
promoted—if time is to be so improved, as to make it the
passage to a blessed immortality—the obligation to keep the
Sabbath must be recognised, and its observance must be enforced
and regulated according to the injunctions of God’s holy
word.
It is indeed asserted by some that, under the Christian
dispensation, the observance of a day of rest is a mere matter of
expediency—that we are under no divine obligation to abstain from
labour or other worldly pursuits—that the Sabbath was
purely a Jewish institution, and has passed away with the other
“weak and beggarly elements” of Judaism. But on
what grounds are such assertions made? because, as it is alleged,
there is no positive command in the New Testament to keep the
Sabbath, “no direction for its observance, nor any reproof
for the neglect of it,” and because certain expressions are
employed by St. Paul, which seem to bespeak “indifference
to its retention, or even rebuke for its revival.”
With regard to the first objection, viz. the want of a direct
command, this could scarcely be necessary, inasmuch as our Lord
not only himself kept the Sabbath, but in all his remarks in
reference to it, spoke in a manner that necessarily implied his
recognition of its divine origin and perpetual obligation.
Besides, as he expressly declared that he came not to destroy the
law or the prophets, (both of which are full of exhortations to
keep the Sabbath), what right have we to deny the obligation of
the fourth commandment, because it is not expressly repeated in
the New Testament? The safer and more just way of reasoning
would surely be this: Under the former dispensation God in the
most solemn manner promulgated a law, connecting with its
observance great temporal and especially great spiritual
blessings, and visiting its violation with the most severe
judgments. This law has not been formally and explicitly
abrogated, nor its sanctions withdrawn. The law, therefore,
still remains in force. Shew us that the fourth commandment
has been abrogated in as plain terms as those that were employed
in its promulgation; and then, and not till then, we may with a
safe conscience regard the observance of the Sabbath merely as a
matter of Christian expediency.
Where, again, was the necessity of “direction” for
the observance of the Sabbath, when the first Christians, (many
of whom,
as well as the Apostles, were Jews) had the services of the
Jewish synagogue as a model, and the plain instructions of the
law and prophets to guide them, both as to the proper manner of
keeping the Sabbath, and the spirit in which it should be
kept? We might as well deny the Christian obligation to
maintain the public worship of God, because in the New Testament
no directions are given for conducting it.
Nor would the absence of “reproof for the neglect”
of the Sabbath be any valid argument against the continued
obligation of its observance. If “in the primitive
age” there were “churches in which both (the
Jewish and the Christian Sabbaths) were observed,” it is
scarcely probable that any number of Christians would be found
who neglected the Sabbath altogether; and if there was little or
no neglect of the observance of the Sabbath, there would be
little or no room for reproof on account of its neglect.
But is there no reproof to be found in the New Testament?
What does St. Paul mean by exhorting the Hebrews not to neglect
the assembling of themselves together, as the manner of some was?
[12a] Few will deny that this passage
refers to the public worship of the Christian church, which we
know was held on the Lord’s day. Here, then, we have
at least indirect reproof; and its connection with what follows
will perhaps suggest an additional reason for the absence of more
frequent and more direct reproof. So essential a part of
practical Christianity was the observance of the Sabbath deemed,
that scarcely any ventured to neglect it, and they who did so,
were considered in danger of apostasy. [12b] If the reasons stated be valid
arguments against the divine obligation to keep the Sabbath, what
can be urged to prove the duty of females to partake of the Sacrament of
the Lord’s Supper? Here, although the institution was
entirely new, and peculiar to the new dispensation, yet we find
neither direct command, nor reproof for neglect, nor even mention
made of any females having partaken of that Sacrament. And
yet who would venture to pronounce these sufficient reasons for
denying the obligation of women to receive the memorials of their
dying Saviour’s love?
With regard to those passages in which “the language
employed is” said to be “that either of indifference
to its retention, or even of rebuke for its revival,” we
apprehend that the intention of the apostle was neither to
condemn the observance of the Jewish Sabbath, nor to intimate
that Christians were under no moral obligation to keep any
Sabbath whatever. If he was speaking exclusively of the
Jewish weekly Sabbath (of which there is no sufficient proof),
his object was, either to vindicate Gentile Christians from the
obligation of its observance, or to condemn the self-righteous
spirit in which it was kept. “Let no man judge you in
meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new
moon, or of the Sabbaths” (or sabbatical appointments.) [13] All these were Jewish
ordinances, from which the council at Jerusalem, guided by the
Holy Ghost, had declared Gentile believers to be
free. They were local and national, and the various
sacrifices and offerings connected with them could be presented
only at Jerusalem, and by Jews or proselytes. They were
therefore declared to be of no obligation to the Gentile
believer. On the contrary, these observances became
injurious both to Jewish and Gentile Christians, if they were
kept in a self-righteous spirit. “I am afraid of you
(says St. Paul to the Galatians), lest I have bestowed upon you
labour in vain.” “Ye observe days, and months,
and times, and years.” Was the apostle rebuking his
brethren for the revival of what had “died
out?” Was he not rather blaming them for observing in
an antichristian spirit, what they were not bound to
observe at all? In his epistle to the Romans, he declares
that the observance of these days is in itself a matter of
indifference. “One man esteemeth one day above
another, another esteemeth every day. He that regardeth the
day, regardeth it to the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day,
to the Lord he doth not regard it.” [14] How then could he be rebuking the
Galatians for simply doing what he himself declares might be done
with a good conscience, and acceptably to Christ? Besides
if the language of the Apostle must necessarily be understood as
conveying rebuke for observing the Sabbath, and consequently be a
valid proof, that the obligation to observe it is done away, much
more might the same argument be deduced from the still stronger
language employed by God in the book of the Prophet Isaiah:
“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. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul
hateth; they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear
them.” [15] What would have been thought of a
Jewish teacher who should have affirmed from this passage, that
the rites here enumerated were for ever abolished? And yet
such a view would have had more to support it, than the doctrine
attempted to be established by the statement of the
Apostle. In both cases, we apprehend, it was not the
observance that was condemned, nor the obligation that was
denied; but the reproof was levelled at the motives and the state
of mind by which the observance was attended. An antinomian
spirit was condemned by the Prophet—a self-righteous spirit
by the Apostle.
The absence of a formal abrogation of the Jewish Sabbath, and
the formal substitution of the Christian Sabbath in its place, is
in perfect accordance with the whole plan of divine providence,
for the introduction and establishment of Christianity in the
world. The religion of Moses was never formally
abolished. Our Lord lived and died in it; and his Apostles
and the early Jewish disciples occasionally at least observed its
rites, and still worshiped at the temple and in the
synagogue. Both religions were from God. Both had the
same end. The same truths and the same spirit were
essential to both. The shadows of the one gave place to the
substance of the other. But in all that was vital, moral,
saving, the two religions were identical. “He was not
a Jew who was one outwardly, and circumcision was that of the
heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter.” In like
manner we conceive, what was purely and necessarily Jewish in the
observance of the Sabbath, passed away with the mere externals of
Judaism; but all that was essential to the spirit of the command
remained in full force.
But it is asked, if the observance of the Sabbath be of divine
and perpetual obligation, why have Christians changed the day,
and why do they not keep the Sabbath in the manner enjoined in
the Old Testament? We reply, that the lawgiver, the
“Lord of the Sabbath,” has by his own acts,
declarations, and example, and by the example of his inspired
Apostles, sanctioned both the change of the day, and the
alteration in the manner of its observance. Christianity
was not to be confined to one country, nor was it necessarily to
be a national religion. It was to overspread the world, and
was to be suited to all countries and climes. It was
therefore necessary that whatever was merely local and national
in the observance of the Sabbath, should be relaxed or removed;
and this might be done, and was done, without either touching the
moral obligation of the law, or taking from its observance a
particle of what is vital and essential. [16] Our Lord did not
abrogate the seventh commandment when he declared, that the
unchaste look was a breach of it. Neither did he set aside
the fourth commandment, when he worked miracles of mercy on the
Sabbath day; when he defended his disciples who were blamed for
plucking ears of corn on the Sabbath day; when he declared it was
“lawful to do good on the Sabbath day.” And if
the seventh day had hitherto been kept as a sign between God the
Creator and his creature man, and as a memorial of creating
goodness; surely there was great propriety in changing the day,
so as to make the Sabbath observance a sign between God the
Redeemer and his redeemed creature man, and a memorial of
redeeming love, as well as an emblem of the eternal Sabbath, [17] which is the hope of the
christian. Nor can we imagine that the most explicit
command for the change of the day, could have come with greater
force to the followers of Christ, than the recorded facts, that
the Saviour rose on the first day of the week, that after his
resurrection, he selected that day to meet his disciples, that
his people ever after regularly kept the first day, and that this
day bears in Scripture the honoured appellation of “the
Lord’s day.” In this change, however, nothing
is given up that is essential in the command to keep holy the
Sabbath day. One day in seven is to be set apart to the
service of God; in it no unnecessary work is to be done; but works of
necessity and of charity on that day are sanctioned by our Lord
himself. And this is so far from being opposed to what was
required under the former dispensation, that it agrees entirely
with the teaching of the prophet Isaiah, who instructed the Jews,
that the proper and acceptable way of keeping the Sabbath, was,
“not to do their own ways,” nor to “speak their
own words,” nor to “find their own pleasure;”
but to “call the Sabbath a delight, holy of the Lord,
honourable.” [18]
Here it will be objected, that this reasoning proceeds on the
assumption, that the Sabbath is of divine and perpetual obligation,
and that the justness of this assumption is altogether
denied. Well then, let us proceed to the proof. It
will not be denied, that in the law of the ten commandments,
commonly called the moral law, twice written by the finger of
God, and delivered to the Jews in the most solemn manner by the
voice of Jehovah himself, there is a plain command to “keep
holy the Sabbath day.” It will not be denied, that
this appointment was made as “a sign” or memorial of
the relation that subsisted between God and his Church, and that
this sign was to be continued in succeeding generations. It
will not be denied, that this appointment was guarded by
sanctions of the most important kind—great blessings being
promised to its observance, and severe judgments being threatened
against those who should disregard it. In all this we see,
that to the Jews the observance of the Sabbath was of
divine obligation, and that that obligation continued so long as
the law itself was unrepealed. In other words, until the
same authority by which the law was promulgated, shall plainly
declare it abolished, every Jew is bound to keep the Sabbath, on
pain of incurring the displeasure of Almighty God.
But was the Jew the only person that was brought under the
sanctions of this law? Were not all proselytes from the
Gentiles bound by the same obligations, as they were also
partakers of the same blessings with the Jews? And does the
obligation stop even here? What is the meaning of this
passage from the prophet Isaiah? “Also 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 servants, every one that
keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my
covenant; even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make
them joyful in my house of prayer . . . for mine house shall be
called a house of prayer for all people.” [20a] Surely this language must have
reference to the times of the gospel, when the gentile nations
would be admitted into the church of God, and become partakers of
the blessings of the new covenant. In support of this view
it may be mentioned, that St. Paul states expressly that gentile
believers have no separate and independent standing in the
economy of redemption, but are as scions cut out of a wild olive
tree and grafted into the Jewish stock, and so with the natural
branches, partake of its root and fatness. Or, using
another figure, he reminds the Ephesians, that before their
conversion they had been “aliens from the commonwealth of
Israel,” but that now they were “fellow citizens with
the saints, and of the household of God.” If this
view be correct, and we see not how its correctness can be
disproved, the Sabbath with its responsibilities and its
blessings, is not confined to Jews, or to proselytes to the
Jewish religion. Its observance is binding upon all who
profess to believe the scriptures and to worship the God of the
Bible.
We cannot help regarding as very untenable the opinion of
those, who dissever the fourth commandment from the rest of the
decalogue, under the plea that it is not properly speaking
moral, [20b] and therefore has not the same force
as the commandments of the second table—as if the express
command of our Maker were not infinitely above every
consideration arising from the nature of the injunction given, or
as if man’s reason or man’s moral sense were
competent to make a distinction where God has made none.
What right have we, under any pretence whatever, to deny the
obligation of a law, so plainly, so solemnly, so awfully
promulgated by the God of heaven himself? The very position
of the fourth commandment in the decalogue, might teach men to
regard it with peculiar veneration. It is the link that
binds together heaven and earth—our duty to God and our
duty to our neighbour. It is the pillar that supports the
whole moral and religious fabric. To attempt to set aside
the obligation to observe the fourth commandment, is therefore,
in our view, a daring attack on the authority of the
Lawgiver. It is a temerity equalled only by that of the
church of Rome in expunging from the decalogue the second
commandment.
We acknowledge the greater consistency of those who affirm,
that the whole moral law is swept away by the gospel; though we
much regret that any true Christians, and those too, persons who
are friendly to a proper observance of the Lord’s day,
should hold notions which appear to us opposed to Scripture, and
calculated to produce among the unthinking multitude, the most
serious consequences. If indeed it were true, that the
whole decalogue is abrogated by Christianity, no supposed immoral
results would deter us from boldly proclaiming the fact. In
that case, we should not shrink from telling men that our church
is under a serious mistake, when she teaches her members to
confess their guilt in breaking each of the ten commandments, to
ask for pardon, and to implore grace to keep them in time to
come. But it is because we believe in our heart that the
decalogue is still in force, and that God’s honour and
man’s happiness alike demand its observance, that we are
not “bold enough” to proclaim as
“liberty” what we are sure would lead to the greatest
licentiousness. A theory of the kind may not
seriously injure men of real piety and great spirituality of
mind; but to others it would be productive of the most lamentable
consequences.
But if Christianity has freed us from the moral law, an
announcement to that effect must be recorded in the New
Testament, and recorded in no obscure or doubtful terms, such as
can by any possibility be misunderstood, but in language as
plain, as perspicuous, and as authoritative, as that employed in
the original promulgation of the law. For here we are not
called upon to give up merely some external observance, or to
change the mode or the time of performing some appointed duty
(for that a less explicit intimation of the divine will
would suffice); but we are told to renounce what in its very
nature is essential to all acceptable obedience, and what above
every other part of revelation bears marks of the divine
impress. If the moral law is to be renounced as part of
“the weak and beggarly elements” of the Mosaic
religion, we must have the voice of God as distinctly abrogating
the ten commandments as it was heard in their original
promulgation. Nothing less will satisfy us, and nothing
else, we venture to say, ought to satisfy any man who believes,
that at the bar of God he must answer for the use he has made of
the divine revelation contained in the Bible. [22]
Now, can any man shew, or does any man pretend to shew, a
single passage of scripture in which it is plainly stated, that
the decalogue is abrogated under the Christian
dispensation? We are well aware that obedience to the law
forms no part of man’s justification—for
“Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every
one that believeth.” We know too that love is the
essence of all obedience—for “love is the fulfilling
of the law.” But we know likewise that “this is
the love
of God, that we keep his commandments.” Nor can we
conceive how the purest and most fervent love can be properly
manifested, towards God or man, without some infallible guidance
for its expression in the different relations of life. [23a] This we have briefly and
essentially in the decalogue; while the principles there
enunciated, are in the prophets and in the New Testament more
fully developed and expanded. And in the absence of some
plain revelation to justify such a course, we would fain know on
what principle the comment (so to speak) is retained, when
the text itself is rejected. If the law written by
the finger of God and published by his own mouth may thus be
ignored, what reason can be urged for listening to the moral
teaching of Prophets and Apostles? But if the law of the
ten commandments has not been annulled, the command to keep the
Sabbath is still in force. For he that said “thou
shalt not kill,” said also, “remember the Sabbath day
to keep it holy.” On this ground then we rest our
defence of the divine and perpetual obligation of the
Sabbath. God has not revoked his own solemn decree
published with his own lips on Mount Sinai. Till this is
done, the decree with all its sanctions continues in full
force.
Here we are content to stop; though we feel that the argument
might be carried much further. For we believe that had
there been no command in the law of Moses, enjoining the
observance of the Sabbath; still both Jews and Gentiles would
have been bound by the original institution, [23b] coeval with man’s being, and forming
the only positive appointment of God, imposed on our first
parents in a state of innocency. He “blessed the
seventh day, and sanctified it.” This thought will
probably have little weight with those who are not convinced by
our previous arguments; but it will doubtless lead some to
reflect, that if the Sabbath was needed for man’s welfare
even in the garden of Eden, much more is it required for the good
of both body and soul in his present condition of sin and toil
and sorrow; and that if the Father of Goodness gave his sinless
creatures a day of rest from worldly employment, and a weekly
Sabbath for more continued and intimate communion with himself;
the compassion of the same gracious Being would not only lead him
to continue the appointment, now so much more needed in
man’s fallen state, but also to command such an observance
of the day, as man’s altered circumstances rendered
necessary. Now, this can only be effected by making it
imperative on all to “keep holy” the sacred day
themselves, and to afford to others facilities to keep it.
If it were to be regarded merely as a privilege, to be enjoyed or
neglected at pleasure, it would not answer the end intended. In
man’s present condition, he cannot by nature appreciate the
boon, nor desire the spiritual blessings that the appointment is
especially intended to convey. The observance of the
Sabbath must therefore be laid upon his conscience as a duty,
that in seeking to fulfil that duty, he may be continually
brought under the means of grace, and the influence of Christian
principles, until by God’s grace he is led to feel the
blessedness of a well spent Sabbath, and keeps from a motive of
love, what he at first observed from a sense of duty.