The divine Promise on its Observance. 19 ing to learn or instruct in the great business " of your knowledge of God and his will, and "your own duty. "Perform all this cheerfully, and uprightly, " and honestly, and count it not a burden to you; for assure yourselves you shall find a "blessing from God in so doing. And remem"ber it is your father that tells you so, and "that loves you, and will not deceive you; "and (which is more than that) remember that "the eternal God hath promised, If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from "doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call "the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, "honourable, and shalt honour him, not doing "thy own ways, nor finding thine own plea 66 sure, nor speaking thine own words; then "shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and "I will cause thee to ride upon the high places "of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage "of Jacob thy father; for the mouth of the "Lord hath spoken it *." In another letter, dated 20th May following, he writes, "Be strict and religious observers of the Lord's day; resort to your parish-church twice that day, if your health "will permit, and attend diligently and reve"rently to the public prayers and sermons. * Isaiah, lviii. 13, 14. 20 Dr. Johnson on the Sabbath. "He cannot reasonably expect a blessing from "God, the rest of the week, that neglects his "duty to God in the due consecration of this "day, to the special service and duty to God "which this day requires." I next advert to the testimony of DR. JOHNSON, who observes, in his Life of Milton, "Religion, of which the rewards are distant, "and which is animated only by faith and "hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind, "unless it be invigorated and re-impressed by "external ordinances, by stated calls to wor"ship, and the salutary influence of example." In reference to the signal blessing which the Sabbath has conferred upon the world at large, the same great moralist has, in his celebrated paper in the Rambler upon SUNDAY, transferred to the Sabbath, by a happy application, the sentiment of Horace in reference to Augustus: "vultus ubi tuus "Affulsit populo, gratior it dies, Sabbath considered as a human Institution. 21 CHAPTER II. The Sabbath considered as an Object of human Policy. SUCH are the authorities which have more immediately occurred respecting the divine obligation and moral advantages of the Sabbath. Few as they are, it may be doubted whether they who find them insufficient would be concluded by a far greater number, it being probable that the defect in such a case, as in other similar cases, does not lie so much in the nature of the evidence adduced, as in the state of the mind to which it is submitted. All, however, who hold the authenticity of a revelation from heaven, and consider themselves as responsible creatures, will perhaps hardly require a more elaborate detail upon the higher or religious branch of the argument. I shall, therefore, now advert to the political part of the question, and consider how far it concerns us as a nation to honour and observe the Sabbath. If it be once conceded, that the Almighty as a sovereign, has a right to command, the inference will be immediate, that he has a right to punish for disobedience. Now, nations can only be punished, as nations, in the present 22 Judgments upon Sin in the old World. 99 world; and therefore, in addition to individual corrections for sin, there are, and ever have been, national judgments for it; such was the awful destruction which involved the ancient world, when "all the fountains of the great "deep were broken up, and the windows of "heaven were opened, and all flesh died that "moved upon the earth, and Noah only re"mained alive, and they that were with him "in the ark." Such was the frightful visitation of Sodom and Gomorrah, when "the "Lord rained upon them brimstone and fire "out of heaven, and overthrew those cities, "and all the inhabitants, and that which "grew upon the ground.' Such were the multiplied plagues which overtook the most ancient infidel on record, who resisted the repeated commands of God in reference to his chosen people, and after experiencing an unparalleled succession of judgments, perished miserably in the midst of his rebellion. Such was no doubt the provocation of the original nations of Canaan, and such the just and righteous vengeance consequent upon it, which (however misrepresented and derided by modern infidels, as inconsistent with the character of the Almighty) in no way derogates from the honour of God, or stands opposed to his perfections; there being, as the ablest theologians have shown, nothing more extraordinary in War-an ordinary Scourge of Sin. 23 men being appointed the instruments of the Almighty for the punishment of wickedness by the calamity of war, than that the natural elements of fire and water, or the evils of pestilence and earthquake, should be commissioned to produce a similar effect by different means; indeed, the worst calamity which can befall transgressors upon earth, falls infinitely short, after all, of that eternal punishment which we profess to believe, awaits the impenitent in a future state; and yet in reference even to this result, we must needs exclaim in the language of Scripture, "True and righteous are thy judgments, thou Lord of "Hosts ;"-"Who is he that contendeth with "his Maker? shall not the Judge of all the "earth do right?" Of a nature analogous with these examples were the judgments which overtook the people of God themselves when they departed from him, and became idolaters like the heathen nations that were about them. So far from receiving any license to sin on account of their divine call, they were obliged by it to greater purity, in proportion to their increased light. As early as the government of Joshua, the declaration was, "When 66 ye have transgressed the covenant of the Lord 66 your God, which he commanded you, and have 66 gone and served other gods, and bowed your"selves to them; then shall the anger of the |