against God; and it is manifest that both Moses and God himself regarded it in that light: it was therefore a pre- sumptuous sin, and consequently, as the Scripture expresses it, " a reproaching of God himself" as a hard master that was unfit to be obeyed e.
Such is every violation of the Sabbath amongst us. It is clear we are not ignorant of his commands respecting that holy day ; and what we do, we do in direct opposition to his will : we "reproach him" for exacting of us what he had no right to demand, and we are under no obligation to grant. Let the profaners of the Sabbath regard their conduct in this view, and they will need nothing further to convince them of their guilt.]
Having noticed the guilt of profaning the Sabbath, let us consider,
II. The danger —
[Wherein can this be painted more strongly than in the text? The very sight of this sinful act created instant and uni- versal alarm : and, as Moses did not know in what way it was to be punished, he sought instructions from God himself. Behold now the answer of Almighty God ; of him, whose wisdom is unerring, whose justice is most pure, whose mercy is infinite : his answer is, " The man shall surely be put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones that he die : " and let this be done " without the camp," that he may be marked as an accursed sinner, that is separated from me, and shall have no part with my people.
Had the offender been cautioned respecting the consequences of such an act, it is probable that he would have laughed at the idea, or, as the Scripture expresses it, would have " puffed at it." So it is with men at this day : they will not be convinced that there is any danger in what they are pleased to call light sins : but there is a day coming when they will find to their cost, that no sin is light, and least of all is presumptuous sin to be so accounted.
If any thing more were needful to evince the danger of vio- lating the Sabbath, we might mention, that this sin is particu- larly specified, as a very principal occasion of bringing down all those judgments, with which the Jews were visited at the time of their captivity in Babylon. Nehemiah, after the return of the Jews from Babylon, found, that the Sabbath was still shamefully profaned amongst them. To remedy this evil, he exerted all his authority, and expostulated with them in the most energetic manner: " Then I contended with the nobles of Judah, and said unto them, What evil thing is this that ye do, and profane the Sabbath-day? Did not your fathers thus, and
e ver. 30, 31.