DELIVERED BEFORE THE AMERICAN AND SABBATH UNION, MAY, 1847.

THE SABBATH AND FREE INSTITUTIONS.

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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, honorable; and shalt honor him, not doing thine own way, nor finding thine own pleasure, 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.-ISAIAH LVIII. 13, 14. IT is plain, that the purity and perpetuity of the civil institutions of the Jews depended on their keeping the Sabbath. Nothing can be more explicit than the promises and threatenings of the Bible on this point. It is not in the text alone, that the Sabbath is singled out, and that national blessings are made to depend solely upon the performance of its duties. The same thing is stated even more explicitly by the prophet Jeremiah. "And it shall come to pass, if ye diligently hearken unto me, saith the Lord, to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but hallow the Sabbath day, to do no work therein; then shall there enter into the gates of this city, kings and princes sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and this city shall remain for ever." "But if ye will not hearken unto me to hallow the Sabbath day, and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched." So we find this subject was viewed by Nehemiah. He fearlessly and vigorously sustained the Sabbath, in his capacity as magistrate, and expressly assigned as a reason, its connexion with the perpetuity of their civil institutions. "In those days," says he," saw I in Judah some treading wine presses on the Sabbath, and bring

ing in sheaves, and lading asses; as also wine, grapes, and figs, and all manner of burdens, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day and I testified against them in the day wherein they sold victuals. There dwelt men of Tyre also therein, which brought fish, and all manner of ware, and sold on the Sabbath unto the children of Judah, and in Jerusalem. Then I contended with the nobles of Judah, and said unto them, What evil thing is this that ye do, and profane the Sabbath day? Did not your fathers thus, and did not our God bring all this evil upon us, and upon this city? Yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the Sabbath." In the Chronicles, we find it assigned as the object of the captivity, that the land might enjoy her Sabbaths, for it is said, that, "as long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath." In these passages the Sabbath stands alone; in others, we find it associated with the highest moral duties, and sustained by the same sanctions with them. Thus, either through the natural laws of God, or by his direct interposition, there was a peculiar connexion between the national prosperity of the Jews and the keeping of the Sabbath.

But the duties of the Sabbath grow out of no peculiar relation of the Jews to God; the promises and threatenings connected with it are such as we never find connected with any mere ritual or ceremonial observances, and as show conclusively that he who uttered them regarded the law of the Sabbath as of equal authority with the rest of the decalogue; and we believe that the history of God's providence, both with regard to individuals and to communities, will show that this law is still unrepealed. Well, then, may we consider, as we now propose to do, THE IMPORTANCE of THE SABBATH TO THE PURITY AND PERPETUITY OF FREE InstituTIONS"—those under which we live, and in the success of which all the hopes of our country are placed.

And here the first point to be noticed is, that the perpetuity of free institutions must depend on their purity. It would not be honorable to the providential government of God, nor for the best interests of man, that corrupt institutions, under whatever form, should be permanent. Corruption, seeking to work out its own ends, must come into collision with every principle of the virtuous, and with every instinct of society for self-preservation; and such a state of things neither can, nor ought to be, quiet, or permanent. There will be, and we say, let there be, overturnings, and overturnings, till He shall come whose right it is to reign, and who will reign rightly. But free institutions, just in proportion as they are free, must furnish scope for this corruption to do its work, and this can be prevented only by keeping them pure. The danger to such institutions now, is not from without, but from corruption within, working in the name and under the forms of liberty-wearing her garb, and using her watchwords.

What then do we mean by the purity of free institutions? This must refer both to the spirit in which they are administered, and to the ends which they secure. The administration of free institutions in their true spirit, implies a right state of the moral nature; a choice of right ends, and of the means of attaining them, implies an enlightened intellect; and hence free institutions will be pure, only when all who vote, and all who hold office, shall be intellectually qualified to perform those functions well, and when they shall perform them from proper motives. Thus, and thus only, can these institutions be rightly administered, and their legitimate ends be secured. This is only another form of affirming the necessity of knowledge and virtue in the individuals composing a free community-the necessity, not certainly, as is often supposed, of all knowledge, but only of that knowledge of rights and of duties which is indispensable to virtue and subservient to it.

If this idea of the purity of free institutions be correct, we are thrown back, for every rational ground of confidence in their perpetuity, upon the elevation and purity of individual character. That this is the true foundation of institutions really free, the only condition on which they can be enjoyed, or be permanent, was clearly seen by our Fathers; and is in accordance with the plainest principles of common sense, and with the methods by which God accomplishes ends in his natural government. In estimating the duration of a house, does common sense regard chiefly its form, or the nature of the materials and the manner in which they are united? In holding this globe together, does God hoop about a vast mass of loose particles by an external force? or does he bestow gravitation upon every individual particle, and thus secure the permanence of the whole by the qualities of the individual parts? The attempt to effect any radical improvement in society, merely by different forms of association, is an attempt to make particles of sand adhere together by changing their position. Remaining as they are, they will not adhere, and it will avail nothing to put them in the form of a triangle or a square or an octagon. No, if mortar is to be made of sand it must be done by adding lime, and when every particle shall have thus acquired an adhesive property, a solid body may be formed that shall endure for ages. This condition, so clearly seen by our Fathers, we ought to see and cheerfully to accept. We ought to regard it as a high distinction of free institutions, that they become pure and perfect only as those for whom they are administered advance towards their true dignity and end, regarded as members of the higher economy of God's government.

From what has now been said, it will appear, that in considering the importance of the Sabbath to the perpetuity of free institutions, we have only to regard its effect upon their purity, that is, virtually and ultimately, upon individual character.

Nor, in considering this, is it to be supposed that the purity of free institutions will depend solely on any one thing. The life of man, simple as it seems in itself, does not depend upon warmth alone, or upon air, or food alone, but upon the combined agency of them all, and if any one of them should be removed, life would cease. So there may be, and we suppose there is, a circle of agencies, each of which is indispensable to the life of a free people, and it becomes a question for the philosopher and statesman, no less than for the divine, to ascertain what these are. Now what we say is, that the Sabbath, suitably observed, comes within this circle. We would not exaggerate its influence; we would detract nothing from the value of other agencies-of family governmentof popular education-of a purified literature. These, and other agencies, may come within this circle; but what we now assert, what we wish to establish in this discourse, as sustained both by reason and by revelation, is, that the Sabbath, suitably observed, does come there.

This position I would now proceed to sustain; but it cannot be done understandingly, unless, as everything will turn upon that, we still inquire, in a preliminary way, what we mean by a suitable observance of the Sabbath. That the first day of the week will continue to be distinguished in some way, cannot be doubted; but no one can suppose that this, of itself, would secure the proposed end. If we would receive practical benefit from the Sabbath, we must do by it as we do by anything else which we put to a practical test-we must use it for the end for which it was made. The day must not be set apart for idleness or vice, but must be a Sabbath, kept in the manner and for the purpose designated by God.

Respecting this purpose of the Sabbath, and the manner in which it ought to be kept, I know there are different opinions; and if its purpose can be ascertained, the manner of keeping it must be also, since any manner would be suitable which would accomplish that purpose. If the Sabbath was given solely with reference to the physical well-being of man, then any mode of keeping it which would secure physical rest would be suitable. If it was given to man as needing amusement; or such cultivation of the social affections as is found in friendly visits, and in dinner parties; or as needing the relaxation there is in idling or sauntering abroad, or in reading novels and light literature-then any mode of observing it will be suitable which will secure these ends. But if the Sabbath was given to man as having a religious nature, and derives its chief significance and obligation, its beauty and its grandeur, from the relations it implies between man as an immortal and an accountable being, and that God who made him, and redeemed him, and will judge him at the last-then will it be suitably observed only as it is observed religiously-in the con

templation of those relations, and in preparation for an immortal life.

But on this point, can any one doubt, who looks at the moral state of man as related to a holy heaven, or at such passages of the Word of God as I have chosen for my text? In this passage we find not only national blessings promised in connexion with the Sabbath, but a specification, most beautiful and full, of that manner of observing it with which alone these blessings can be fully connected. Here man is plainly regarded wholly as a moral and a religious being. It is supposed that he has, and may properly have, pleasures and interests of other kinds; but these are to be held in abeyance, and the day is to be devoted to honoring God in those duties of which he is the immediate object, and to the enjoyments which flow from a contemplation of his holy and glorious character, and of our relations to him. Men are not to do their own ways, or find their own pleasures, or speak their own words. The meaning of these expressions can hardly be mistaken, and I leave them without comment, to be interpreted by the consciences of those who are disposed to a lax observance of the day. These parts of the text are negative and prohibitory, and present that aspect of the Sabbath in which the world generally view it. They regard it as a species of Lent, on which the meats of worldly enjoyment are to be abstained from, only that they may be devoured the more greedily the rest of the week. Hence it seems to them a dull, tedious, unprofitable day. They are at a loss what to do with its hours, and exclaim with some of old, "When will the Sabbath be gone, that we may set forth wheat!" But the same principle is applied here that lies at the foundation of all Christian self-denial, which is always the denial of an inferior part of our nature for the sake of that which is higher. Men are not commanded to withdraw themselves from their ordinary business, and pleasures, and courses of thought, that they may pass into a state of vacuity, or as a penance; but for the purpose of meeting the great and essential wants of man as a social and a religious being, and of rising into a region of higher and purer enjoyment. There are great positive duties to be performed, and high pleasures to be enjoyed; and no Sabbath is ever truly kept, except in the performance of these duties and in the enjoyment of these pleasures. "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, honorable; and shalt honor him-then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD."

These views do not seem to me to need the sanction of human authority; but perhaps it will commend them to some who hear me, to find them adopted by a distinguished novelist and man of the world. "If we believe," says Sir Walter Scott, "in the divine origin of the commandment, the Sabbath is instituted for