companion of fools shall be destroyed." The sabbathbreaker is in truth prepared for every enormity, and every crime he is a bold transgressor; he practically denies God's right to be worshipped, honoured, reverenced, obeyed; he says God is not an object of admiration, fear, gratitude, love. He that thus contemns God, has no regard for man, society is not safe with him; he may be restrained from crime by selfish motives; he is not restrained by conscience and religious ones.' And here I cannot but say a few words to you on the sin of drunkenness. Hear the observation of one of our greatest Judges in England, many years ago, respecting this every day-increasing sin," If" says he, "the murders and manslaughters, the burglaries and robberies, the riots and tumults, the adulteries, fornications, rapes, and other great enormities that have happened during the space of twenty years, were divided into five parts, four of them have been the issues and product of excessive drinking, or of tavern or alehouse-meetings." And such, would we fear, be found to be true at the present time. Drunkenness, and on the sabbath day in particular, is the parent of all other vices; a drunken man is at all times an object of disgust, and he who gives himself up to this disgraceful vice, we may be sure commits other sins, of which it is the source. A drunken woman, and if any of this description should in an hour of sobriety cast her eye over these pages, let her pause and consider-a drunken woman is an object of still greater disgust-lost to all virtue, and to every sense of what is right, she goes on headlong in vice, ruins, with her drunken companions, the constitution of her body, brings her life to an untimely end, and eternal destruction upon her immortal soul. Avoid then, for the future, as you would wish to be saved, the odious vice of drinking intoxicating liquors. Keep yourselves from drunkenness. And how awful is the thought, that the Sabbath, the Lord's own day, should be the one chosen for the commission of this sin! that day which should be holy to the * Seven Sermons on the Lord's Day, by Dr. Wilson, Bishop of Calcutta, p. 160. Lord, and honourable, is thus devoted to the devil, to the most filthy and abominable vices. Let me exhort you who have hitherto indulged in sabbath-breaking, in whatever way you may not have kept holy the sabbath, to pray unto God to pardon you through Jesus Christ, for your great sins committed against him ; implore him to give you his grace, that you may amend your conduct for the future, that you may hallow his sabbaths. "Remember to keep the fourth commandment " "Remember that thou keep holy the sabbath day, six days shalt thou labour, and do all that thou hast to do, but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God, in it thou shalt do no manner of work, thou and thy son and thy daughter, thy man servant, and thy maid servant, thy cattle, and the stranger that is within thy gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested on the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it." You see, that in whatever situation in the country you may be placed, you still may refrain from breaking the sabbath day. You know the fatal consequences of persisting in disobeying this commandment of God, that they, the servants of the devil, who will not keep holy the sabbath day, that day of sacred rest upon earth, can never be admitted to that eternal sabbath of rest above, which maineth" only" to the people of God." 66 re 31 THERE IS NO PEACE TO THE ISAIAH, LVII. 21. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked. THE holy prophet Isaiah having in this chapter reproved the Jews for their idolatry, and given comfort unto those who are of an humble spirit and who put their trust in God, declaring that it is the Lord who proclaims peace, not only to them, but also to distant nations; sums up the whole by assuring them that the wicked can expect neither peace nor comfort, since their minds are in a continual state of agitation and uneasiness, like a turbulent and restless ocean.- "The wicked," says he, 66 are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt ;" and in the words of the text, " There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." From these words you may learn, 1st.-That there can be no peace to the wicked in this world, and, 2ndly.That they will be strangers to peace in the world to come. Should it be asked, who are meant by the wicked, in the text? I answer, all those who act contrary to the known commandments of God-who break his laws, (whatever they may be,) and who obey not the gospel of Christ. Many, many there are, who by their general conduct plainly shew, that, while they call themselves christians, they will not depart from iniquity. To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. Against such, if they die impenitent, even Sodom and Gomorrah, those sinful cities of the plain, that for the crimes of their inhabitants, were destroyed by fire and brimstone from the Lord out of heaven, shall rise up in judgment. With the mere professors of christianity-with him who is not what he professes to be, who shall attempt to compare the state of the ignorant heathen, such as for instance, that of the native blacks of this country, who never knew that there was a Redeemer and a God? But leaving the mere professor of christianity, to touch upon the sins of deepest die. I ask you, had Cain peace of mind after he had slain his brother Abel? when the blood of that righteous brother cried from the ground for vengeance against him, and the almighty had set his mark upon him, did he feel aught but the stings of conscience-the terrors of the world to come? When Judas had betrayed his master, Jesus Christ, with a kiss, and sold the Lord of Life for thirty pieces of silver, did not the worm which dieth not, the fire which is not quenched, begin already in this world to prey upon his guilty soul? I need not bring you more instances, to shew you, that the wicked, the impenitent sinner, will in vain, seek for peace of mind and quietness of conscience, either during, or after the commission of his crimes. There is that within a man, which, while committing sin, will not permit him to rest in comfort. The murderer and the thief-the daring robber by day, and the plunderer of another's property by night, terrified with the just punishment of their crimes, would, if possible, hurry from themselves, and endeavour to conceal their inward pangs: but the still small voice of conscience pursues them whithersoever they fly, and the fearful looking for, not of an earthly judgment alone, not merely of the offended laws of their Country; but of a judgment to come, of the dreadful vengeance of their offended God in another world, will sooner or later fill their minds with the bitterness of anguish and despair. Such then are the troubled feelings of notorious sinners, even in this life. And shall they who commit, what are considered by the world, sins of less magnitude, shall they escape? Where is the peace of mind which belongs to the adulterer, and the fornicator, after the commission of his sin? Where is the real happiness, the consciousness of well doing, in the breast of the profane swearer, the drunkard, the liar, and the sabbath-breaker? Do you think that the man who knows that his God has appointed one day in seven to be set apart for his own peculiar service, and who wilfully turns his back upon the appointed ordinances of public, as well as the duties of private worship, and who makes that day, a day of worldly merriment or of worldly business, or of idleness and riot; think you, that such an one, when he comes to reflect, can look back with peace and forward with hope? Must he not rather see the anger of God suspended over him, and expect, if he repents not, and amends his ways, the due punishment of his neglect of the means of grace, and of the offers of mercy through Jesus Christ? The drunkard too, while he spends upon himself and his guilty companions, in wanton excess, the hard earned wages of his daily toil-while perhaps, his wife and little ones are starving at home. Can he fail, sooner or later, to suffer the pangs of a guilty conscience, and to feel, (though he will not confess it,) that he is a stranger to real peace of soul? "There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." There is no peace to those who wilfully break the commandments of God--who are continually plotting mischief and crime-who neglect the duties of religion-who indulge in all manner of vicewho, by so doing, ruin themselves and their families, and who turn away from the offer of the pardoning mercy of Christ-offers which are made to all. There is no peace to those who profess to be christians, while, in works, they deny the holy name by which they are called. To whom then is their inward peace of soul? who, amidst the dangers, the temptations, the errors, and the sins of this mortal life, can journey on calmly and humbly through the days allotted them upon earth, and look forward with holy joy to that state of everlasting peace, where no enemy can enter, where no temptations can assault, no neglect of duty smite the conscience? The true christian, he is the man, who happy and contented with the lot assigned to him by providence upon earth, with the eye of faith fixed upon heaven, humbly hopes, through the merits of the Saviour, to enter there. Thou, (0 God) will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee; because he trusteth in thee. In order, then, to enjoy true peace, religion must be the first care of your hearts. It must be your chief object to discharge your duty to your God and F |