come." And here a further consideration, and one, too, all on the side of godliness, awaits us. It consists in the certainty which enters, essentially, into the idea we form of those rewards godliness is capable of bestowing. In the affairs of this life, so complicated are they, and so intimately blended each with other, it may happen that all our most careful undertakings may be rendered abortive, and our endeavours frustrated by the interference of causes over which we have no control: and although even this would not deprive the godly mind of its inward peace and tranquillity, it may leave little else to sustain the spirit of the possessor. But in the favour of God there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." The promise which has been made to godliness of the life to come, is more stable and sure than the mountains themselves. Fortune may deceive, friends may desert, health may decay, honours may vanish; all that this world boasts of may fade, and disappear from our view : but the world to come, the word of the Lord, the favour of our God, never will, and never can fail those who, in godliness, wait for them. Heaven and earth may pass away; but his word whose * James, i. 17.

chosen minister has said, that godliness hath the promise of the life that is to come, will never pass away. And thus, my brethren, does godliness show itself to be profitable unto all things: thus does it invite you by the assurance of your finding, under its guidance, what you now seek for so often in vain. It offers you that happiness you aim at, and fail to compass in all your covetings after this world's treasures: it assures you of that peace and joy which you are, in fact, most desirous to obtain, though most ill-judging in the means of obtaining: it secures to you the favour of your fellow men: and, what is of infinitely greater moment, it ensures to you the approbation of your God. It holds forth to you the promise of all that is really worth your pursuit in the life that now is, and it bestows upon you, through the merits of your Redeemer, an eternal inheritance in glory. May that God, who is emphatically the God of love, give you, my dear brethren, the heart to feel, and the spirit to desire, and the courage to pursue after this his inestimable gift of godliness, (a gift to which he has assured so much,) through Jesus Christ our Lord.

SERMON XIX.

THE SANCTITY OF THE LORD'S DAY.

* ST. MARK, ii. 27, 28.

He said unto them, the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.

AMONG the many plain declarations of holy writ, the purport of which is so obvious as to seem to defy misconstruction, and yet which suffer every day by the strange misconstructions to which they are subjected, this one of the text may be ranked among the very foremost. The most inexcusable desecration of the day set apart by the wisdom and the goodness of God for holy and spiritual

purposes, has sometimes been attempted to be justified by adducing the authority of this passage; and, in the mouths of the irreverent, the exclamation, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath," is too frequent to be strange to any one. Not that it can be supposed in this case, more than in any of the many others which we meet with in the world, the practice of ungodliness really has its origin in a mistaken interpretation of Scripture; nothing of the sort ever takes place: but when evil habits have been formed, or are in the act of being formed, then the conscience, ill at ease in itself and convinced of transgression, looks abroad to discover some justification or excuse for what is being done; and if any passage of holy writ can be applied, however unfairly, to the case, it is forced into meanings and loaded with deductions in the highest degree foreign to its true spirit, and is thus actually made to belie the truth of God's word of which it is itself a part. Iu the present case it may be affirmed, without fear of contradiction, that no violator of the Lord's-day was ever made such by reading the words of Christ, as we have them in the text; although so many, after having become transgressors and polluters

of the Lord's Sabbaths, have taken this Scripture in their mouths, and dared to affirm with reference to their own ungodly actions, that "the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." A very few moments' attention however given to the saying thus profanely perverted, will serve to set the true meaning of it before us.

First, observe the expression "the Sabbath was made for man." Now inasmuch as Sabbath' means rest-rest from servile and unnecessary work-rest from the struggles, and the ambitions, and the greedy desires of this world-rest from all that is not a work of piety, a deed of charity, or an action of necessity; and as this rest was appointed for mankind; it is certain mankind have both an interest in, and a duty arising out of it. To whatever absurd or superstitious extent the Jews of old carried the observance of it, (and that it was againt this excess of observance to the exclusion of the spirit of it Christ opposed himself, there can be no doubt in any one's mind who will read the narrative;) still their abuse or misapprehension of it could not do away with the purpose for which it was originally appointed by God.

"The Sabbath was made for man,"