DAY OF REST.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 2569, 19 December 1890, Page 2

DAY OF REST.

SIR MATTHEW HAlj£B GOLDEN MAXIM. A Sunday wen spent . : Brings a week of content And health for the toils of the morrow; But a Sabbath profaned, Whatsoe'er may be gained, Is a certain forerunner of sorrow.

THE SABBATH MADR;^OB|IA^ The Sabbath is not a device 6? human counsel, nor a result of experience. God appointed it as an institution. He gave it a special place among the things which He made. He set it apart from all the other provisions which He made for man. By taking it out from the other division of time, and from the uses of time which He gave to man, He put a distinctive character upon, it, and showed that it had a specific part of its own to fulfil in his providential care and government of mankind. In the natural order of the things that are seen and made, day and night, summer and winter, seedtime and harvest, are institutions whose place and character and functions have been framed by God. In the history of the Church, the Passover under the Old Dispensation, and the Lord's Supper under the New, stand forth as institutions bearing marks and purposes from God. So, also, in the great economy of the ways of God to man, the Sabbath has been, from the time when man was made, a Divine institution, an arangement whose nature and designs -were determined by the wisdom and goodness of God. God appointed the Sabbath as. a Law. Whillt it is an ordinance of Goa which mala may recognise and approve and enjoy, it is also a commandment of God for the observance of man. The day which God has made for man is not only a day to which God has given outstanding prominence in the course of earthly things ; it is also a day for the keeping of which His word has gone foith to the children of men. If there were nothing more than the declaration of pur Lord that « the Sabbath was made tor mafc," that would be enough to teach us that God made the Sabbath, for the benefit and advantage of man, that He intended it to be the minister of good and the dispenser of joy to man. And, assuredly, as it comes round from week to week, it cornee hot only as a great institution which God Has estAbliihed in the framework of his providence, and not only as a holy law which He has issued for the obedience of men, but also, and most conspicuously, as » precious boon which he has given for the enrichment and the happiness of men. <• ■ . ' ■ ■''. ; God gave the Sabbath to man for rest. The Sabbath is God's appointed rest to man of one day in seven. He instituted it, that man might have rest from the common works and cares of this life, which go so far to consume his energies and to absorb his affections. 1 He gave it that man might have secured to him, as a birthright from heaven, beyond all the contingencies of mere human opinion and human arrangement, that rest without which labour would have proved a burden too heavy to be borne, ana work, whether physical or mental, would wear out man's strength before the time and snap the cords of his life by a tension which they were never meant to bear. In this view of it> medical men testify that it is essential to the bodily health and mental vigour of men in every situation of life. In the same view of it, those who have studied the wealth of nations, and the history of commonwealths, bear witness that it is everywhere inestimable because "of the energy which it renews and invigorates. The most careful observers say that they who keep it are not poorer, but richer. 4 * While industry is supended, while the plough lies in the furrow, while the exchange is silent, while no smoke ascends* from the factory, ■ a process is going on quite as important to the wealth of the nation as any process which is performed on more busy days. M an, the machine of machines^-the machine compared with which all the contrivances ot the Witts and Arkwrights are worthless— is repairing and winding up, so that he returns to his labours on the Monday with clearer in. teliect, with livelier spirits, with renewed corporeal vigour." * Who, then, will not prize a day which has purposes like these 1 Who will not guard it from profane intrusion, from unholy misapplication % Who would take away this peciousboon ? Who would diminish its blessings to the bodies and the souls of men ? Who would lessen its attraction and loveliness, its ajp^ority and grace i For it is made for man ; not for the Jew, rather than the Gentile, and not for the Gentile rather than thY Jew ; not for the servant more than for the master, and hot for the master more than for 'ijiej servant ; not for the poor more than the rich, and not for- the rich more than for the poo/ ; but for man, as man, in all classes and in all conditions, in all times and in all countries. There is not a nan whom it does* not emlrrape in its hitf.v requirement. There is not a man who niay not, by God's graoe and truth, through repentance towards God and faith towards the Lord Jesus Christ, be led to the heavenly rest of which it is a symbol on the earth. And therefore it behoves all who love the Sabbath and its Lord to hold it fast, and to hand it down, unimpaired, to the generations th*t are to come. The Lord shall be their everlasting light, and the days :pt their mourning shall be ended honourable. And, as the days of the years of their, pilgrimage pass, the day which the Lord has made for man will rejoice over them, in the' outgoings of its mornings and evenings ; and it will be the witness of their progress, from grace to grace and from strength to strength, towards that day which shall be as the days of heaven, whose light is sevenfold, and which shall break upon them in that v better country " where there is no night, nor change, nor toil, but God's rest, and their rest in God for ever and ever.