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But far and farther still my view I bend,And now I see a child thy steps attend ;

To yonder churchyard-wall thou tak'st thy way, While round thee, pleased, thou see'st the infant play;

Then lifting him, while tears suffuse thine eyes,

Pointing, thou tell'st him, There thy grandsire lies!

NOTES

TO THE SABBATH, &c.

THAT the religious observance of one day in seven was a point of main importance under the Jewish and Christian dispensations, is evident, from the very strong terms in which the law commanding its observance is couched; from the anxious repetitions of that law, the judgments which the prophets denounced against its violation, the fulfilment of these denunciations, the strict observance of the Sabbath during the best times of the Jewish polity; and its observance by Christ, the apostles, and the primitive Christians. What is more material,-that the Sabbath was instituted, not as a mere ritual observance, but as an essential article of moral duty, is proved by this consideration, that one of the objects of the institution was-the amelioration of the lot of the laborious part of the creation, animals as well as men. -But the spirit of this admirable institution will be best illustrated, by bringing into one view some of those passages of scripture, whether preceptive, prophetic, or historical, in which the SABBATH is mentioned.

"Keep the Sabbath day, to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor the stranger that is within thy gates; that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant may rest as well as

thou.

And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand, and by a stretched-out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day."-Deut. v. 12-15.

"Ye shall keep my Sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary I am the Lord."-Lev. xix. 30.

"Six days shall work be done; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein: it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings."-Lev. xxiii. 3.

"Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest; that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger may be refreshed."-Exod. xxiii. 12.

"Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the Lord, to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant; even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt-offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people."-Isa. lvi. 6, 7.

"And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias: and when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord."-Luke iv. 16-19.

"And that day was the preparation, and the Sabbath

drew on. And the women also which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the Sabbath day, according to the commandment."-Luke xxiii. 54-56.

"But when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and sat down. And after the reading of the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent unto them, saying, Ye men and brethren, if ye have any word of exhortation for the people, say on. Then Paul stood up, and, beckoning with his hand, said, Men of Israel, and ye that fear God, give audience."-" For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him."— "And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath."-Acts xiii. 14, 15, 16, 27. 42.

"Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail, saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit ? That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat."-Amos viii. 4-6.

"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, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasures, 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."-Isa. lviii. 13, 14.

"And on the Sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made."-Acts xvi. 13.

"And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow, and continued his speech until midnight."-Acts xx. 7.

The toil-worn horse, set free.-P. 48. 1. 4.

"A Sabbath day's journey," says a late able and faithful labourer in the vineyard of the Lord, "was, among the Jews, a proverbial expression for a very short one. Among us it can have no such meaning affixed to it. That day seems to be considered by too many, as set apart, by divine and human authority, for the purpose, not of rest, but of its direct opposite, the labour of travelling; thus adding one day more of torment to those generous, but wretched animals, whose services they hire; and who, being generally strained beyond their strength the other six days of the week, have, of all creatures under heaven, the best and most equitable claim to suspension of labour on the seventh. Considerations such as these may perhaps appear to some below the dignity of this place, and the solemnity of a Christian assembly. But benevolence, even to the brute creation, is, in its degree, a duty no less than to our own species; and it is mentioned by Solomon as a striking feature in the character of a righteous man, that he is merciful even to his beast.' HE, without whose permission' not a sparrow falls to the ground, and who feedeth the young ravens that call upon him,' will not suffer even the meanest work of his hands to be treated cruelly with impunity. He is the common Father of the whole creation. He takes every part of it under his protection. He has, in various passages of scripture, expressed his concern even for irrational creatures, and has declared more especially, in the most explicit terms, that the rest of the Sabbath was meant

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