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not useless exactions of wanton-power, contrived only to display the authority of the master, and to imbitter the subjection of the slave. They were made for man, They were appointed for the salutary influence which the Maker of man foresees they are likely to have upon his life and conduct. To live in the wilful neglect of them, is to neglect the means which Infinite Wisdom hath condescended to provide for the security of our future condition. The consequence naturally to be expected is that which is always seen to ensue, a total profligacy of manners, hardness of heart, and contempt for God's word and commandment.

Having thus shown the true distinction between the primary duties and the positive precepts of religion, I shall in some future discourses proceed to the particular subject which the text more especially suggests, and inquire what the reverence may be, due to the Sabbath under the Christian dispensation; which I shall prove to be much more than it is generally understood to be, if the principles of men are to be inferred from their prac tice.

SERMON XXII.

MARK ii. 27.

The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.

WHAT is affirmed of the Sabbath in these remarkable words is equally true of all the ordinances of external worship. The maxim therefore is general; and, at the same time that it establishes a distinction between the primary duties and the positive institutions of religion, it clearly defines the circumstance in which the difference consists. Of the positive institutions of religion, even of those of Divine appointment, whatever sanctity may be derived to them from the will of God, which is indeed the supreme rule and proper foundation of human duty,-whatever importance may belong to them ás necessary means for the attainment of the noblest end, the improvement of man's moral character, and the consequent advancement of his happiness,-yet we have our Lord's authority to say, that the observance of them is not itself the end for which man was created. Man was not made for these. Of natural duties we affirm the contrary. The acquisition of that virtue which consists in the habitual love and practice of them is the very final cause of man's existence. The intrinsic worth and seemliness of that virtue is so great, that it may be presumed to be the motive which determined the will of God to create beings with capacities for the attainment.

These, therefore, are the things for which man was made. They were not made for him. They derive not their importance from a temporary subserviency to the interests of man in his present condition-to the happiness and preservation of the individual or of the kind. They are no part of an arbitrary discipline, contrived, after man was formed, for the trial and exercise of his obedience. Their worth is in the things themselves. In authority they are higher than law-in time, older than creation in worth, more valuable than the uni verse. The positive precepts of religion, on the contrary, are of the nature of political institutions, which are good or bad in relation only to the interests of particular communities. These, therefore, were made for man. And although man hath no authority to give himself a general dispensation from any law which hath the sanction of his Maker's will, yet, since God hath given him faculties to distinguish between things for which be is made and things which are made for him, it is every man's duty, in the application of God's general laws to his own conduct on particular occasions, to attend to this distinction. If, by an affected precision in the excrcises of external devotion, while he disregards the great duties of morality, he thinks that he satisfies the end of his creation,-if he sets sacrifice in competition with mercy, as the Jews did, when under the pretence of rich offerings to the temple, they defrauded their pa rents in their old age of the support which was their due-and when they took advantage of the rigour with which their law enjoined the observance of the Sabbath, to excuse themselves on that day from offices of charity, while they could dispense with the institution for the preservation of their own property,-whoever, after these examples, thinks to commute for natural duties by an exact observance of positive institutions, deceives himself, and offers the highest indignity to God, in be

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lieving, or affecting to believe, that he will judge of the conduct of moral agents otherwise than according to the truth of things-that he will prefer the means to the end, the subordinate to the primary duties. On the other hand, the wilful neglect of the ordinances of religion, under a pretence of a general attention to the weightier matters of the law, argues either a criminal security or a profane indifference. No one, whatever pretensions he may make, can have a just sense of the importance and the difficulty of virtuous attainments, who in mere indolence desires to release himself from a discipline which may diminish the difficulty and insure the effect: nor is it consistent with just apprehensions of the Divine wisdom, to suppose that the means which God hath appointed in subservience to any end may be neglected with impunity. A neglect, therefore, of the ordinances of religion of Divine appointment, is the sure symptom of a criminal indifference about those higher duties by which men pretend to atone for the omission. It is too often found to be the beginning of a licentious life, and for the most part ends in the highest excesses of profligacy and irreligion.

Having thus taken occasion from the text to explain the comparative merit of natural duties and positive precepts, and having shown the necessity of a reverent attention to the latter, as to means appointed by God for the security of virtue in its more essential parts, I proceed to the inquiry which the text more immediately suggests, the sanctity of the Sabbath under the Christian dispensation. The libertinism of the times renders this inquiry important; and the spirit of refinement and disputation has rendered it in some degree obscure. I shall therefore divide it into its parts, and proceed by a slow and gradual disquisition. An opinion has been for some time gaining ground, that the observation of a Sabbath in the Christian church is a matter of mere

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consent and custom, to which we are no more obliged by virtue of any Divine precept than to any other ceremony of the Mosaic law. I shall first, therefore, show you, that Christians actually stand obliged to the observation of a Sabbath, that is, to the separation of some certain day for the public worship of God; and I shall reply to what may be alleged with some colour of reason on the other side of the question. I shall, in the next place, inquire how far the Christian, in the observation of his Sabbath, is held to the original injunction of keeping every seventh day; and which day of the seven is his proper Sabbath. When I have shown you that the obligation to the observance of every seventh day actually remains upon him, and that the first day of the week is his proper Sabbath, I shall, in the last place, inquire in what manner this Christian Sabbath should be kept.

To the general question, What regard is due to the institution of a Sabbath under the Christian dispensation? the answer is plainly this,-Neither more nor less than was due to it in the patriarchal ages, before the Mosaic covenant took place. It is a gross mistake to consider the Sabbath as a mere festival of the Jewish church, deriving its whole sanctity from the Levitical law. The contrary appears, as well from the evidence of the fact which sacred history affords, as from the reason of the thing which the same history declares. The religious observation of the seventh day hath a place in the decalogue among the very first duties of natural religion. The reason assigned for the injunction is general, and hath no relation or regard to the particular circumstances of the Israelites, or to the particular relation in which they stood to God as his chosen people. The creation of the world was an event equally interesting to the whole human race; and the acknowledgment of God as our Creator is a duty in all ages and in

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