96

OUR RELATION TO THE DEITY.

[Part 1.

Hebrew Sabbath transferred to the Christian Sunday.* Withthese few explanatory remarks I proceed.

(1.) The first and most obvious duty appropriate to Sundayis a cessation from labor. This is a part of the fourth command-ment, is of perpetual obligation, and has no connexion with thelocal and temporary Hebrew policy. The Sunday is a greatand precious privilege. By this institution, those who labor withtheir hands are rescued from the severities and hardships ofunremitting toil;—and those whose labor is chiefly of the under-standing find in it a season of refreshment and renovation ofstrength and energy, of which they stand in equal need with thosewhose labor is performed by the hands.

Works of necessity and mercy, however, and the labor ofattending and performing divine service, are recognised by theSaviour himself as suitable to the Jewish Sabbath, f and they areequally so to the Christian Sunday. The relief of Sunday tothe laboring classes of mankind contributes greatly to the com-fort and happiness of their lives, both as it refreshes them forthe time, and as it lightens their six days’ labor, by the prospectof a day of rest always before them. This could not be said ofcasual indulgences of leisure and rest, even if they occurred morefrequently than Sunday. It is matter of experience, also, thatdays of relaxation which occur seldom and unexpectedly, beingunprovided when they do come, with any duty or employment,and the manner of spending them being regulated by no publicstandard of propriety and established usage, they are usually con-sumed in sloth, or in rude, perhaps criminal diversions, or, stillworse, in scenes of riot and intemperance. The Sunday is aday of rest and refreshment to the body and to the mind, but nota day of sloth and indulgence. The remark, moreover, mustnot be omitted, that it gives a day of rest and refreshment to thelaboring animals, as well as to laboring man. Thus “the Lordis good to all, and his tender mercies are over all the works ofhis hands.” J

(2.) But the Sunday includes much more than cessation from

* Levit. xxiii. 8, 42, &c. t Mark ii. 23 - 28; Mat. xii. 1 -14.

t Paley’s Moral and Political Philosophy, p. 253.