But, befides the particular fubjects that have happened to be laid before us at church, we have need to confider frequently at home the general state of our hearts and lives, and what we have to hope or fear from it, here and hereafter. Such inquiries may indeed be made on other days; and the eftener the better. But is it likely they will, if they are omitted on that day, which is peculiarly proper for them, and on which we are continually reminded of them? Some have little time else for any deliberate self-examination: none can have a fitter time: why then should any one throw it away? Is there nothing you have need to learn or amend? Perhaps there is so much, that you are afraid to fet about thinking of it. If fo, your only way is to fet about it inftantly. Every other remedy will increase the disease: this alone will remove it. But perhaps you cannot think to good purpose long together. Do then to good purpose what you can: bring yourfelf gradually to more: ufe pious books for your affiftance. Perhaps they seem flat, and void of entertainment: but perhaps also it is your fault that they do. Or if that were otherwife, is it not sufficient that by them you are inftructed, exhorted, warned, reproved, when you want it? There is no pleasure in this. But did you never perfift in any thing, which at first gave you no pleasure? it not be the greatest pleasure to conquer your fins, to advance in goodness? Poffibly in some of these books, you meet with expreffions now and then, which appear unelegant and fingu. lar and they excite ludicrous ideas in your minds instead of ferious ones. But poffibly too, this may proceed entirely from your own ignorance, or wrong difpofition. For the authors of many of them were men of both as good understanding, and as good breeding as any, either in their own times or the present. Or fuppofe the defect to be theirs ; yet furely, in other cafes, you never flight useful information or direction, because it is accompanied by a few peculiarities, and why should you in this? : applying to And fhould But it may be your hindrance is of a different kind. You are afraid, that employing regularly part of your Sunday's leifure thus, will expofe you to ridicule, as formal fuperftirious wretches. And have you no fear on the other fide then, that employing it idly will expose you to cenfure, as irreligi ous 7 ous and profane wretches? Befides, there is no occafion for all perfons to know how your time is fpent. Or if they did, are you to make the opinion, or perhaps only the pretended opinion, of every inconfiderate creature, the rule of your life? Think how far that would carry you. And if what they are pleafed to call fuperftition, or precifeness, will lead you to every thing right and good, and the neglect of it will lead to the contrary, be not ashamed of it for a few reproachful names; but fecure to your private ufe, without aiming to be remarkable in doing it, a fhare of the Lord's day, proportioned to what your cafe requires, and your circumftances admit: improve your minds in religious knowledge by reading; improve your hearts in religious affections by meditation and prayer; guard your fteps by firm but prudent refolutions; and let neither imaginary nor. fmall impediments keep you from this. At least make it an ufual practice; but if poffible a conftant one. For the oftener you omit it, the stronger temptation you will be under to lay it afide: and the more ftatedly you perform it, the furer you will be of receiving, not only much benefit, but, after a while, much comfort from it. Till you take the proper care of your own behaviour on the Lord's day, it must be with an ill grace, and with small fuccefs, that you can attempt to regulate that of persons belonging to you, though it concerns you very much on more accounts than a few. And therefore you ought to be religious, for this reason amongst weightier, to make them fo. But to be fo yourself and neglect them is wonderfully inconfiftent. And yet many, whose fincerity in religion one dares not question, fuffer their fervants, if not their children, to live without any regard to it, or any knowledge of it,, as if they were totally indifferent, both about their future. happiness, and their own prefent intereft. Very often they have not the fhadow of an excufe to make for this inattention. Sometimes business is pleaded. But on Sundays at leaft, there muft or fhould be leifure; and it is both unwife and wicked to spend it in trifling or indolence, to the omiffion of fo important a care; which consequently is one of the private duties of the day. Here the injunction of God to the Jews, which cannot be lefs in force among Chriftians. The words 2 which which I command thee shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children; and thou shalt talk of them when thou fitteft in thine houfe, and when thou walkeft by the way, and when thou lieft down, and when thou rifest up*. This doth not mean, that our conversation should be of nothing befides religion; but it must mean, that religion should have a due share in it; and doubtlefs then a peculiar fhare on the day, which God hath hallowed. Employing a part that in giving thofe about you the obvious proofs of Chriftianity, juft notions of the holiness of the divine law, and their need of a Redeemer and a Sanctifier, inftruction in their various duties to God and man and themfelves, joyful expectations of the rewards of piety, awful apprehenfions of the confequences of fin, affectionate cautions against the dangers to which they are exposed, will be a moft improving exercise to yourselves, and afford you the most rational prospect of gaining an useful influence over them to your own comfort, and to their good in this life and the next. Your children are part of yourselves: All who depend on you, are placed under your inspection. You complain perhaps of both. Why then will you not use the opportunity of this day to remedy what you complain of? In all likelihood they will be much the worfe for the day, unlefs you endeavour to make them the better. You cannot indeed be fure of prevailing with them. But if you do your best in a prudent manner, and engage others to do what you cannot fo properly do in perfon, you will not fail of being able to fay in general, As for me and my houfe, we will ferve the Lordt. They, who have never been vicious, may ufually with eafe be made religious, by good advice and good books, a regular example set them, and a good-natured watchfulness over them. The very worst may be either reftrained or removed; perhaps may be reformed. And how excellent an ufe of the day this would be, I fhall leave upon your thoughts in the words of fcripture: He which converteth a finner from the error of his way, fball fave a foul from death, and hide a multitude of fins ‡. Deut, vi 6, 7. † Josh. xxiv. 15. James v. 20. SER 4 SERMON CXIV. ON THE PROPER OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH. GEN. ii. 3. And God bleed the feventh day, and fanctified it; because that in it be refted from all his work, which God created and made. HAVING propofed from these words to fhew, I. On what authority the appropriation of one day in feven to the purposes of religion ftands; II. In what manner that day ought to be spent : I have, in two discourses, finished the former of these heads, and made fome entrance on the latter; under which I have confidered our obligations, 1. To attend public worship and instruction on this day: 2. To spend a due portion of it in the more private exercifes of piety. And now I proceed to another duty; which is, 3. To reft from labour. This is not fo ftrictly required of Chriftians on the Lord's day, as it was of Jews on the fabbath; to whom not only the fourth commandment prohibited work in general terms, but further and more particular prohibitions were given, and the whole most severely enforced, in other parts of their law, as I have already obferved to you. Nor would milder injunctions have fuited the nature of the people; which required them to be treated, as St. Paul takes notice, like children under age, or bond-servants *; to whom rules are always prescribed more minutely, and a more punctual obfervance of them is expected, and harfher punishments are inflicted, than VOL. III. Hh • Gal. iv. I-II. after after they are grown up to years of greater discretion, and more capable of being trufted to themfelves. Indeed the moft rigorous precautions proved infufficient to make that wayward nation regard, long together, almost any part of their religion, before the captivity, and to enforce the observance of the Sabbath even after it *. But as profaneness and fuperstition very naturally prepare the way for each other; fo when at length they had recovered from the former, they fell into the latter; and fome would not fo much as defend their lives on this day †, others would not cure a disease ‡, others would condemn the flightest common action, under the notion of its being work; as when the difciples rubbed a few ears of corn in their hands to eat §; which the Jews at this day infift was a tranfgreffion of the law. Nay, they are gone farther than their predeceffors in our Saviour's time; for now they will not pull one of their cattle out of a pit on the Sabbath, which then they would ||. Jefus, the great restorer of rational piety, gave them the most convincing proofs, that they were never bound to abstain from fuch things ¶. Indeed, befides his other arguments, which you may read in the gofpels, a fingle rule, alleged by him on more occafions than one, that God will have mercy, and not facrifice, afforded the moft fatisfactory direction to every confiderate mind. For if he preferred the exercise of needful humanity and goodness before the most facred inftitutions of his own worship (so that the latter might be omitted, if elfe an opportunity of the former would be loft), undoubtedly he would also choose mercy, rather than mere reft from labour, an appointment of plainly inferior rank. As for fmall and inconfiderable actions, they come not properly under the denomination of work; and, unless forbidden by name, were always to be deemed objects beneath the attention of the law. Nor are we Chriftians bound to the fame rigour of external obfervances which the Jews were. For the world being arrived at a proper maturity for it, our bleffed Redeemer hath delivered all the children Matth. xii. 9-14. Neh. xiii. 15-2210 +1 Macc. ii. 31—41. See the Texts, d, c. |