CHAPTER V. DUTIES OF THE SABBATH. "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day." THE Sabbath is a day appropriated to the services of domestic piety. "It is the Sabbath of the Lord your God in all your dwellings." Family worship is one of its duties. It is not the only day for that interesting and profitable service, for it is not the only day on which families stand in need of, and receive blessings from above; it is not the only day, therefore, on which it is proper and necessary for them to acknowledge their Benefactor. But certainly the Sabbath is a day on which it would be peculiarly inexcusable and criminal to omit such a duty, and on which it ought to be performed with special interest and care. The daily sacrifice under the law was doubled on the seventh day, and in the temple service of Ezekiel was to be tripled. The fourth commandment is specially directed to heads of families, requiring them, as such, to keep the day holy. On that day "it is a good thing to show forth God's loving-kindness in the morning, and his faithfulness every night." Reason itself dictates this as the duty of every morning and evening. The heathen had their household gods. The members of families salute their head as they part at night and meet in the morning, and can they retire and assemble without any recognition of Him from whom their being and blessings are all derived? "The ox knoweth his owner, the ass his master's crib." "If I be a father, where is mine honour ? If I be a master, where is my fear?" A service, so evidently to reason itself a duty and a privilege, required not 1 Ezek. xlvi. 4, 5. Hence perhaps the practice, at one time more common, than, we presume, it now is, in Scotland, of the observance of worship in families three times on the Lord's day. so much prescription, as directing and animating examples, promises to encourage its observance, and warnings to deter us from its omission. And we have all these. We see Job offering sacrifices continually for his children; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as they journeyed with their families, building altars wherever they went; David, after engaging in public worship, returning to bless his household; Esther fasting with her maidens ;1 Daniel going into his house, and kneeling down and praying three times a day, as he had done aforetime, which was family prayer, since otherwise it could not be known, as it was, to be his custom; Cornelius fearing the Lord with his house, and praying in his house or with his household; above all, our Lord praying with his family of disciples, and teaching them how to pray. These are examples, and we have the following promise and warning: "If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven." "Pour out thy wrath upon the families that call not on thy name." The worship of a family includes, with prayer, the melody of praise, and the devout reading of a portion of the sacred volume. "The voice of rejoicing" was heard of old "in the tabernacles of the righteous." Paul and Silas did not omit to sing praises to God even in a prison. Christians are thus commanded: "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord." The religious instruction of families is the business of every day. It was no ceremonial rule which enjoined parents to speak of the Divine law to their children day by day, as they rose up and sat down, in the house and by the way—and to train up a child in the way it should go. This is the law of Christ in all ages. "Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath; but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." "I know him"-Abraham-" that he will command his children and his household after him." Solomon bears testimony to his father's care, and walks in his steps.2 Hezekiah appears to have had three great objects in view for his remaining life on recovery from 1 "Fasting is always connected with prayer in Scripture."-M'Crie's Esther, p. 129. 2 Prov. iv. 1-4 sickness-walking humbly, the praise of God in the temple, and making known divine truth to his children. Timothy is congratulated on his unfeigned faith which dwelt first in his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice, and on his having from a child known the holy Scriptures-by whom he was taught them it is unneces sary to say-" which were able to make him wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus." This "delightful task" cannot be too regularly and diligently performed during the week, and when thus attended to, answers the important end of showing the young that religion is a matter for every day. One day's instruction, too, would do little comparatively to inform the mind -one day's training would do little to check inclinations to evil, and to form habits of goodness. But the Lord's day presents more abundant time, leisure, opportunity, and calm for calling a family together, and ascertaining and promoting their progress in Divine knowledge. The sacredness of the day and its associations give additional impression to what is taught on it. It is worthy of notice that, after preaching to the multitude, our Lord taught his disciples in private.2 Conversation on "the great things of God's law" is another duty of a family on the Lord's day. The primitive Christians saluted each other every first day of the week with the words, "The Lord is risen." The conversation of Christ and his disciples related almost entirely to such subjects, even on common days. And on all the Sabbaths and Lord's days which the Redeemer spent on earth, and the conversation of which is recorded, his discourse, except a sentence or two relating to matters of necessity, bore on the things that concerned salvation and eternity, so that men were constrained on one of these days to wonder at "the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth;" on another to say, "Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God;" and on a third to exclaim, "Did not our hearts burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the Scriptures ?" And can that be restraint or bondage which the benevolent Saviour has taught us by his example or can we be wrong when we walk in his steps? If the mind that was in him be in us, in proportion as it is so will grace, as it was with him, be 1 2 Tim. i. 5; iii. 15. 2 Mark iv. 34. poured into our lips, for "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." We err in not speaking more on common days of the subjects on which the Saviour delighted to expatiate. How mean are all our secular matters compared with the interests of the soul, the things of God's law, the great salvation, and a momentous eternity! David invited all that feared God to come near and he would tell them-about his wars, his prowess, and wealth? -no, but what God had done for his soul. To a commonplace question from a king, Jacob returned a pious and an instructive answer. Moses and Jethro sanctified their meeting by sacrifice. The men in Malachi's time who "spake often one to another," must have spoken of the name on which they "thought." Christ and Moses and Elias spake (some conceive that the day of the transfiguration was the Sabbath-day) of the decease which Jesus should accomplish at Jerusalem. "A word about Christ," said Ussher to a friend, "ere we part." And if this should be the most delightful, as it is incomparably the most important and glorious subject for every-day converse, how especially should the Sabbath be felt to be its appropriate season! Brainerd says of those who talked on the Sabbath of secular affairs, "Oh, I thought what a hell it would be to live with such men to eternity." And again, in reference to some irreligious characters: "All their discourse turned on the things of the world, which was no small exercise to my mind. Oh, what a hell it would be to spend an eternity with such men ! Well might David say, I But adored be God, beheld the transgressors, and was grieved. Personal devotion, and attention to the means of spiritual improvement in private, form a congenial work of the Lord's day. The study of God's word, communing with our own hearts, reflection on our past lives, the remembrance of our Creator, the consideration of the work of redemption, the anticipation of death, judgment, and eternity, and the pouring out of the soul in prayer to God, these are duties of every day, and specially of a day that affords so many facilities and reasons for such occupations. Said a good man, "O how I love thy law! it is my meditation all the day." To quote a psalm or song for the Sabbath-day: “It 1 Edwards' Works (1839), vol. ii. pp. 334, 337. TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises For thou, Lord, hast made me to thy name, O Most High. glad through thy work: I will triumph in the works of thy hands. O Lord, how great are thy works! and thy thoughts are very deep." The feelings of good men in anticipating and reflecting on the public services of the sanctuary are thus indicated: "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord." "A day in thy courts is better than a thousand." "When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me for I had gone with the multitude; I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holy day." The Sabbath, "the holy of the Lord," was to be called "honourable" and "a delight;" and as the command was that persons were on that day not to do their own ways or find their own pleasure, the ways they were to do were God's ways, and the pleasure they were to find was pleasure in him and in his service. No pretence of personal or family duties can exempt from the obligations of public worship. But neither must public interfere If there is one with domestic, nor either with personal duties. class of engagements that are more than another an evidence to a person himself of his own piety, it is the class of personal duties, secret prayer, meditation, self-examination, and the study of the Scriptures, and of other holy books. And yet it is not the observance of certain practices that shows the character so much How is it with us in as the spirit in which they are performed. this respect? Are we seen by Him who seeth in secret retiring from society on the Lord's day, that we may converse with our spirits, and with their great and gracious Father and Redeemer ? Alas! if it be not so, it is too certain that we are not "spiritually minded, which is life and peace, but carnally minded, which is death." Our attendance in the house of God in this case is a mere self-righteous task, instead of a work of gratitude and love; a cloak to hide us from ourselves, instead of a gratification and a profitable discipline of the heart. It is in accordance with the nature and designs of the Sabbath to devote a portion of it to works of benevolence and mercy. And our Lord, who hath left us an example that we should walk |