[What are the proper employments for our minds, the prophet Isaiah has plainly told us : " We should account the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable ; and should honour him, not doing our own ways, nor finding our own pleasure, nor speaking our own words2." We should endeavour to have our thoughts abstracted from the world, and to fix them with intenseness and delight on heavenly objects. On every day we should present to God our sacri- fices of prayer and praise : but as, under the law, the accus- tomed sacrifices, both of the morning and evening, were doubled upon the Sabbath a, so, under the Gospel, we should have our minds doubly occupied in the service of our God.]
The subject before us suggests ample matter,
1. For reproof — [Many, very many there are who hate the duties of the Sabbath; and, breaking through all the restraints of con- science, follow without remorse their usual occupations. Others, complying with the established forms, cry, " What a weariness is it b ! " When shall the Sabbath be over, that I may prose- cute more pleasing or more profitable employments c ? When they come up to the house of God, they find no pleasure in his service, but are rather, like Doeg, " detained before the Lord'1." Some, indeed, conceiving that they are doing some- what meritorious, spend without reluctance the time allotted for public service ; but, though they draw nigh to God with their lips, their hearts are far from hime. It is not such worshippers that God seeks or approves ; nor is such the sanctification of the Sabbath that he requires. On the con- trary, he is indignant against all such profaneness or hypo- crisy; and declares that such persons " worship him in vain.f " Whatever such persons may imagine, they indeed profane the Sabbath. And what the consequence will be, they may form some judgment, from the punishment inflicted on the man who gathered sticks upon the Sabbath-day. By God's express command, he was stoned to death g. If, then, so heavy a sentence was executed upon him by the direction of the Most High, can we suppose that God is more indifferent about the conduct of his creatures now ? or that he has loaded them with mercies for no other end than to give them a greater licence to sin ? Let us well consider this : for " if they, who despised Moses' law, died without mercy," surely a far sorer punish- ment awaits us, if, with our additional obligations, we disregard the wonders of redeeming love'1.]
z Isaiah lviii. 13. a Numb, xxviii. 9, 10. b Mai. i. 13.
c Amos viii. 5. d 1 Sam. xxi. 7. e Matt. xv. 8.
f Matt. xv. 9. e Numb. xv. 32— 3G. h Heb.x.28,29.