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Title: The Sabbath: A Sermon
Author: William Wood
Release Date: December 27, 2021 [eBook #67021]
Language: English
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SABBATH: A SERMON***
Transcribed from the 1831 Roake and Varty edition by David Price. Many
thanks to the British Library for making their copy available.
THE SABBATH;
A
SERMON.
* * * * *
BY
THE REV. WILLIAM WOOD, B.D.
RECTOR OF COULSDON, AND VICAR OF FULHAM.
* * * * *
* * * * *
LONDON:
ROAKE AND VARTY, 31, STRAND.
1831.
* * * * *
LONDON:
ROAKE AND VARTY, PRINTERS, 31, STRAND.
* * * * *
TO THE
INHABITANTS OF COULSDON,
THE FOLLOWING
SERMON,
INTENDED TO HAVE BEEN PREACHED IN THEIR CHURCH IN THE
AFTERNOON OF OCTOBER 23rd,
IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED,
AND PRINTED FOR THEIR INSTRUCTION,
BY THEIR FAITHFUL PASTOR.
* * * * *
NOTICE TO THE READER.
THE Sermon here presented to the Public is below all criticism. It makes
no pretensions to novelty, or to merit of any kind; it is only one of the
thousands which are preached every week by men, who, in the midst of evil
report, labour, nevertheless, with an anxious zeal for the salvation of
souls. It was composed in haste, with no intention of printing it, for a
sequestered parish, where much remains of ancient simplicity; but where
the author lamented to see, as he thought, a neglect of public worship,
not occasioned by infidelity, or by profligacy, as in great towns, but by
ignorance of the subject, or thoughtlessness of conduct.
The inclemency of the weather having prevented him from preaching it at
the time intended, and no other opportunity being likely to occur for
many months, he determined to print it at once for the use of his
parishioners; but some other little tracts of his, with the same limited
object, having been called for by persons desirous of doing good in their
several spheres, and on a larger scale, he thinks it possible that they
may wish to have _this_ also, and therefore he publishes it.
The subject of the sermon, in these days especially, is a momentous one.
May God bless it, for the sake of the subject, to his own glory, and to
the benefit of men! The author has no other wish.
THE SABBATH.
Exod. xx. 8.
“_Remember the Sabbath-day_, _to keep it holy_.”
THIS command, to remember the Sabbath-day, in order to keep it holy, was
given by Almighty God himself to the Jews. I say, it was given by
himself. He did not order any prophet, or other holy man, to give it in
_his_ name; He gave it himself in his own person; He spoke it aloud, in
the ears of all the people, with his own voice. And this voice, as we
are told, was so terrible, that the hearers of it were smitten with
intolerable fear and trembling, and began to entreat, with the most
humble and urgent supplications, that God would vouchsafe, in future, to
make known his will to them by the voice of Moses rather than by his own.
No doubt, _we_ also, who are assembled here, should think it a very awful
thing, and should tremble in our whole frame, if we were to hear the
voice of the great God of heaven and earth speaking to us from a cloud,
or from a mountain-top; and we should naturally desire to hear the
gentler, the more familiar voice of a man, like one of ourselves; to whom
also we might listen, and with whom we might talk and reason, without any
dismay, or even alarm. However, in this case, we may presume, the mighty
terror of God’s voice was increased tenfold to those who heard it, by the
accompanying hoarse blast of the brazen trumpet, waxing louder and
louder; by the continual crash of tremendous thunderings; and by the red,
fiery flashes of direful lightnings, which burst around them, whilst God
was speaking, out of the thick, dark smoke that covered the top of the
mountain “where God was;” the whole mountain itself, too, shook from its
very foundations, and seemed to be all in a flame, burning with fire.
Now, what was the reason of this unusual manifestation of the Divine
Majesty, but that God wished to give the command in the most striking,
impressive manner, so that it should never be forgotten by _that_
generation of men; and to show them a terrific instance of his power
also, that they might tremble at the very thought of disobeying him, and
of profaning, or neglecting, the Sabbath-day, which he _thus_ commanded
them to remember, to keep it holy.
But this was not all. God was not satisfied that He had done enough,
even when He had uttered this command with his own voice, and with all
that show of his terrible power and majesty; He wrote it also on a tablet
of stone with his own finger; and He ordered the sacred tablet to be
preserved with the utmost care, in the most sacred place—in the very ark
where his whole covenant with his chosen people was preserved also. One
generation alone could have heard that voice, and have seen those
miraculous signs; but many succeeding generations, to remote times, might
see the tablet of stone, and read the writing of God’s finger, and learn
the Divine will for themselves with a more reverential awe; whilst every
other supernatural circumstance of the history was taught by one
generation to another, and was handed down from father to son through
_all_ generations.
You may readily now understand, then, of what vast importance this
command must be in the eye of God, and how necessary the observance of it
is for the welfare and happiness of man. For, if this were not so—if it
made no difference, either to God’s own glory, or to _our_ welfare and
happiness, whether the Sabbath-day were remembered to keep it holy or
not; it is difficult to conceive that God should have taken so much
pains, as it were, to establish a Sabbath-day at all; by descending, as
He did, from heaven upon the Mount, in the midst of lightnings, and
thunderings, and an earthquake; by proclaiming it to the astonished,
trembling multitude with his own voice; by writing it, besides, with his
own finger; and by ordering it to be laid up in the ark as a divine
ordinance for ever.
But how does all this apply to other nations, and to _us_, of _this_
nation, and of _this_ age? God gave the command in this miraculous
manner to the Jews only; how do _we_ know that He intended that _we_, and
all mankind, should observe it to the end of time?
This is a very reasonable question, and it may have a very satisfactory
answer; namely, that the same causes for a Sabbath-day, and for
remembering it, to keep it holy for ever, concern alike all the rest of
mankind as well as the Jews; and that _we_ Christians, above others, have
especial cause for hallowing our own Sabbath-day; such as neither the
Jews, nor the rest of mankind, until they become Christians, _can_ have
for hallowing their’s. If it were _their_ bounden duty to hallow
Saturday, or any other day, much more is it _ours_ to hallow Sunday.
In truth, the ordinance of a Sabbath, to be kept holy to the Lord, is of
the same age and antiquity with the creation of the world itself. It was
not first established amongst the Jews; it was only renewed and
re-established amongst _them_, when they themselves, like the heathens,
had forgotten, or neglected it. It was established as early as with
Adam, the first man, even in Paradise; and, therefore, all the sons of
Adam—that is, the whole race of mankind, and not the Jews only, are
equally bound to keep it. By proclaiming it to the Jews, as He did, God
shows to us how awfully we ought to think of it; but all the nations of
the world, which existed before, were bound by it before; and all which
have existed since, and exist now, _have_ been, and _are_, bound by it,
in consequence of their common descent from Adam, to whom it was declared
in the beginning, and made a law to his whole posterity for ever.
Nevertheless, if God himself had said nothing about it, it would have
been the duty of man, the rational creature of God, and indebted to God
for so many blessings—for so many noble powers and faculties, to have set
apart some portion of the time which God gave him to the especial honour
of the bountiful Giver—to have employed that time solely in thanking him
for his precious gifts and his gracious providence—in meditating upon his
glorious perfections and his marvellous works—and in serving and
worshipping him by all other means, with such peculiar, extraordinary
tokens of love, and gratitude, and veneration, as would not have been
possible, or not suitable, at every time, and in every place; but only at
the appointed time, and in some appointed place.
This, I say, would have been the duty of man, if left entirely to the use
of his own reason. But no individual _could_ have determined for
himself, and still less were all men likely to agree with each other,
what the portion of time to be set apart for this purpose should be; how
much the beneficent Author of their being, and of all their enjoyments,
would expect of them to consecrate to him; and how often the consecrated
time should return, so as to please God, and draw down from above his
further blessings upon them.
This, then, which _we_ should have been quite unable to decide for
ourselves, God has decided for us. He has himself, in his infinite
wisdom, determined what is fit and proper both for _us_ and for _him_.
He has not put us under the necessity of reasoning upon so important a
matter at all; from the very beginning He appointed it for an everlasting
law, that the portion of time to be dedicated to his especial service and
worship should be one day out of every seven days: that six successive
days should be _ours_ for labour of body and of mind, and for all the
needful business of this present life; that the seventh day should be
_his_, for a holy rest unto the Lord—for celebrating his wondrous
works—and for a more quiet, undisturbed consideration of our own immortal
concerns, and all the spiritual business of the life which is to come
hereafter.
But the seventh day, then, if we will use it thus, is _ours_ as well as
_his_; it is _ours_ more than all the six which go before: it is _ours_
in its own sublime, peculiar sense, to give us a foretaste of eternity by
withdrawing us from temporal things; in short, it is one of the best
gifts of God to man. O taste and see how gracious the Lord is! The
Sabbath is to his own glory; but what would man be without it? The most
wretched of beings in every way; worn out before his usual allotted time
with unintermitted toils; brought down to the grave by a premature old
age and decay; and, what is still worse for him, with diminished hopes of
happiness in another and a better world. The Sabbath, thanks be to God!
brings with it, if we will, a sweet, a tranquil, a refreshing rest: it
repairs and renews the languishing, the broken powers of body and of
mind; it sends us forth again to our duties on the following day with new
strength, and a new spirit, more adequate to the performance of them;
cheerfulness sits upon our brow, instead of a perpetual gloom; health,
instead of the sad hue of a thousand maladies, which never-ending,
never-pausing labour must have necessarily produced. And if the Sabbath
has been spent as God intends that it should be spent, no small advance
has been made towards some happy mansion in our eternal abode. We have
heard, we have read, we have thought much about our blessed
Redeemer—about our own salvation—about the bliss and glory of heaven. We
have put ourselves into every way, private and public, of receiving every
grace of which we stand in need, and which God, through Christ, has
promised to bestow. We have prayed more at home than the business of the
world will permit us to do on any other day; we have assembled in the
church, as often as the church was open, to receive the mercies to which
we are entitled, by God’s gift, only as we are members of the church; we
have confessed our sins there with bended knees and a penitent heart; we
have said with heartfelt thankfulness, “Amen,” to the covenanted pardon
of God announced by the minister of Christ; we have partaken of all the
divine ordinances blameless; if the holy table was decked, we have
feasted upon the heavenly banquet of our great Saviour’s body and blood.
These have been the holy deeds of the well-spent day; and holy deeds like
these will qualify us for the rewards of eternity, if, under the
continued influence of the Holy Spirit, encouraging, strengthening, and
sanctifying us, we persevere unshaken in the same course to the end. The
Sabbath-day, then, is ours more especially; God, in consecrating and
hallowing it to himself, has done so to _our_ present and eternal profit.
By means of it we perform the better all the business of men, all the
business of Christians, all the business of those who aspire to heaven.
Now, there can be no doubt, but that God, being infinitely wise, and also
most intimately acquainted with the peculiar wants and infirmities, and
with the whole nature of man, whom he himself created, and upon whom he
bestowed what nature he pleased, foreknew, and therefore decided from the
very first, that one-seventh of man’s time was _necessary_ to be, and
consequently _should_ be, released from labour, and devoted to a holy
rest. But the way which he took to show this to _us_, and to give us, at
the same time, an awful and striking sense of it, is perhaps one of the
most wonderful instances of all the wonders of his providential care of
us. He himself, in his mighty work of the creation of this world, tasked
himself to a six-days’ labour, and rested on the seventh day, in order
that man, following _his_ example, might use the same proportion of
labour and rest.
And this He has told us in his holy word; He has not left it to _us_ to
find it out by our own reason; He has informed us himself. It had been
easy for _him_, for Omnipotence, surely, to have made the world, and all
the creatures that fill, diversify, and adorn it, in a single day; nay,
in a single hour; yes, truly, in a single minute. As He said, “let there
be light, and there was light;” so He had only to say, “let there be a
world,” and there would have been a world. In a single instant of time,
in the very twinkling of an eye, all the miracles of creation that are
visible to _us_, and all that are invisible, beyond the ken even of our
imagination, at the Divine fiat, at the simple sound of the omnific word,
would have sprung into existence at once, and into all the well-being,
order, and harmony, by which all things will consist, in the same beauty
and perfection, unto the end. But then there would have been nothing in
such a proceeding for the moral instruction, or for the temporal and
eternal benefit of men. He set bounds, therefore, to his own boundless
power; He reduced infinite down to finite; He controlled his own almighty
energies, and ordered his work, a whole world, so as to finish it in six
days; He knew that a seventh day of rest was needful for man; and,
therefore, He bestowed it upon him as a merciful boon, secured to him
indefeasibly for ever by the express pattern of his own doings, and by
the positive command to copy that pattern throughout all ages.
Now let us see, then, how we stand as Christians. Do you think it
likely, however, that so merciful a religion, as that of Christ, should
take this merciful ordinance of the Sabbath from us? Do you think it
likely that the same God, who, under the law, ordained a Sabbath, even
for the miserable brute creation, that the poor cattle might rest from
their labours as well as their rich owners, should abolish it under the
gospel? Of all incredible things this would be the most incredible, that
God should care so much for beasts, which perish, as to provide _them_ a
temporary repose from bodily toil, and none for man, who has an immortal
soul to be saved, or lost, for ever; after having redeemed him, too, by
the most astonishing method of the sacrifice of his own beloved Son. O
they of little faith, who reason thus! But, blessed be God! it is not
so. As Christians, we are still the posterity of Adam; and, if we
partake, alas! of all the evils that sprung from Adam, at least we
partake of this one benefit. Sin has not deprived us of it, but made it
the more necessary for us. Again, as Christians, we are not indeed the
posterity of Abraham, according to the flesh; and, therefore, we are not
necessarily under any part of the law given to the Jews; except it might
have pleased the Author and Finisher of our faith to adopt any part of it
into his gospel. But this he most clearly did with respect to the ten
commandments, of which the hallowing of the Sabbath is one. He fulfilled
and abolished every thing ceremonial, which concerned the Jews only; he
retained, and gave a new force and sanctity to every thing moral, which
concerns all mankind; and, without doubt, it is in every view a moral
duty, that the thing made should worship the great Maker, on solemn days,
which shall often return—that they should return, as they do, on every
seventh day, we owe to God’s gracious providence. “The Sabbath,” as our
Lord beautifully and mercifully said, “was made for man;” and,
consequently, whilst man remains upon this earth, a stranger and a
pilgrim, travelling along a weary, rugged road, towards some better
country in the distant prospect before him, the Sabbath too remains; on
the authority of our blessed Saviour it remains, to refresh us all on our
journey; to support and comfort us under the fatigue of it; and to cheer
us with the thought of the everlasting Sabbath in heaven, of which it is
the type and the shadow.
And this it does the more effectually, because _we_ Christians keep _our_
Sabbath on our own Lord’s day. The Jews keep _theirs_ on the day of
their wonderful deliverance from bondage in Egypt; and very properly.
But _their_ deliverance from bondage in Egypt was the type and shadow of
_our_ grander deliverance from the bondage of sin and death; which
deliverance was then most evidently and undeniably accomplished, when our
Saviour triumphed openly over both, by rising from the grave, alive and
victorious. Well do we call the first day of the week, the revered day
on which he did it, the Lord’s day; and well have all Christians ever
since, assured of their redemption by his resurrection on that day,
consecrated and hallowed it for _their_ Sabbath for ever. So that now
all the reasons which could ever have operated amongst mankind for the
keeping of a Sabbath, and still more reasons, operate upon _us_
Christians. We keep one day in seven in memory of the creation, as the
rest of men should do; but we keep _that_ day, in preference to all
others, which reminds us, more forcibly than any other, of our second
creation; of our being begotten again to a new life; of our more
interesting creation in true righteousness and holiness, after having
fallen from the divine image of the holy Creator himself. And, as _our_
sacred religion is founded upon the religion of the Jews, and was
shadowed out and prefigured by it, we are naturally led from the antitype
to the type; from the thing prefigured and shadowed out to the thing
prefiguring and shadowing it; and we look back with reverence to the
Jewish Sabbath, so awfully and terrifically appointed, which commemorated
on a chosen day a great temporal deliverance of _theirs_, prefiguring a
still greater spiritual deliverance of _ours_.
What shall we now say, then, my beloved, Christian brethren? Shall we
not remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy? And how shall we keep it
holy, if we employ ourselves on _that_, as on other days? “The Sabbath
was made for man;” but how was it made for him, if he labours, as on the
other six days; if he pursues the same worldly objects, and torments
himself with the same anxious cares; if he chooses this very day for his
journies; for his pleasures; nay, even for his vices; and aggravates
every sin by the abuse of _that_ which was intended to heal it; to give
him time and repose for self-examination; and to enable him the better to
make up the solemn account of every action, word, and thought, between
himself and God?
God blessed the Sabbath-day, and sanctified it for his own glory; but how
does it promote his glory, whilst the generality of his faithless,
ungrateful people, even in this Christian nation, never enter his sacred
courts on that day, to give him the honour due unto his name in the
presence of their fellow-men. And “shall I not visit for this, saith the
Lord?” Much, indeed, very much is it to be feared, that he _will_ visit,
with some terrible calamity too, and soon also, this country of ours, so
dear to us all, so much our boast and pride, which he has hitherto
guarded with an extraordinary protection, and exalted above other nations
with unparalleled renown and power. The breach, the dishonouring of his
Sabbaths, he will keenly resent, and unsparingly avenge. What he
denounced to the Jews should perpetually sound in our ears—“Verily my
Sabbaths shall ye keep for a perpetual covenant; they are a sign between
_me_ and _you_ throughout your generations for ever; that ye may know
that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you. They are holy unto you; every
one that defileth them shall surely be put to death.” It is a despite
done to God himself, directly and personally; it is a scorn both of his
majesty and his goodness, which cannot but provoke him to consume the
guilty in his wrath.
Already, indeed, do we feel his wrath in part executed upon us, and in
part behold it with terror suspended over us. The nightly incendiary,
who prowls about in darkness (but God sees him) and destroys the fruits
of the earth, which should have been for the food of man; the open
rioter, who, in broad day-light, levels with the ground the temple of
God, the marts of commerce, the mansions of the great, and puts to the
hazard even the life of his beneficent neighbour; the wide-wasting
pestilence, which, with havoc and death in its train, has reached the
opposite shores, and now only waits the signal to cross the sea to ours;
all these are the avenging emissaries of God; but the last more
apparently; and I pray God, as King David did, that _we_ may fall into
_his_ hands rather than into the hands of men—yet He, who stilleth the
fury of the warring elements, can also still “the madness of the people.”
But the great question for _you_, and which you should lay your hands
upon your hearts, and answer conscientiously, is this; how much _you_
yourselves, individually, have contributed to increase the mass of the
national guilt in this particular, of which God is so jealous. As my
sacred office compels me to speak the truth, and forbids every kind of
flattery and dissimulation; as I cannot otherwise be useful to any of
you, or assist you in working out your salvation, but by bearing witness
to the truth; as I am, moreover, now about to leave you for a while, and
therefore wish to give you some departing, farewell advice of the most
momentous importance; I say it, I confess, with deep sorrow, and with a
painful alarm on _your_ account, that, even in this otherwise
well-disposed and well-ordered parish, there is a too evident, and a too
great, neglect of the Sabbath. In the true spirit of pastoral affection,
but in the plain, manly, authoritative language of an Apostle, I say, “I
cannot praise you in this.”
Alas! alas! what correct idea, or right devout feeling of God’s sabbaths,
can _they_ have, who are always absent from God’s house, and who,
perhaps, profane these sacred days, besides, by drunkenness, or gaming,
or some other revelry? None, undoubtedly. But all _our_ remonstrances
from this sacred place must, of necessity, be useless to _them_; they
need them most, but are never present to hear them. Of the rest, how few
come here with so much regularity as to show that it is an essential part
of their system of life—an established principle of conduct never to be
departed from but upon the most urgent, extraordinary occasions! And how
will God judge of _them_, who think that they do sufficient honour to his
Sabbath by coming once only, and forget that God may construe their
coming but once as a proud assumption on their parts, that they want no
more of his sanctifying grace than once a day may be likely to bestow!
If the help of the Holy Spirit alone can fit them for salvation, and this
help is chiefly given by the ministry of the church, how can they be
perfectly satisfied with themselves, and think that they have done
enough, when they neglect, once a day, an opportunity of partaking of the
spirit, which the church is the instrument to convey? I am not unaware
of the circumstances of this parish, which render more sometimes
impossible; but how few, how very few, perhaps two or three individuals,
lament those circumstances, and the consequent loss of additional means
of grace!
But how will God judge even of the most exemplary in any congregation,
who never forsake his house, either for pleasure, or for business, or for
any of those plausible reasons by which men are too willing to delude
themselves to their own ruin; if they spend the rest of the day,
nevertheless, as they spend the other days of the week, and do not
remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy throughout; if they do not devote
the whole of it with a sober, religious awe to God; if they do not send
their children and servants to church with the same punctuality as they
go themselves; if they do not shun all the resorts of sensuality and
gaiety abroad, or admit such inmates at home; if they do not study the
Holy Scriptures, and put aside all other books but such as may tend to
build them up in faith and piety; and, in short, if they do not live on
this one day, in conformity with the sacred nature of the day, so
uniformly and so universally, as to throw a sanctity around the lawful
business and the lawful pleasures of every other day, and gradually to
make their whole life truly Christian, truly divine, and fit, indeed, for
heaven.
Now, if they do not accomplish all this, whatever else they do, they fall
short of a due observance of the Sabbath; and who is there, even amongst
the most exemplary, alas! who ever thinks of accomplishing so much?
Alas, alas! who is there amongst any of us, who, in some way or other,
does not absolutely break the Sabbath, or even profane it? And what
wonder, then, that there should be so much looseness, licentiousness, and
depravity of manners in our nation; and that so many evils assail us, so
many impend over our heads, and threaten us with some mighty ruin?
Sabbath-breaking has led to the temporal and eternal ruin of thousand and
tens of thousands; it cannot but lead to the deeper corruption of all; to
the gradual undermining and ultimate extinction of all religious
principle in the heart of man. When a people cast off their respect for
God’s Sabbaths, they are prepared to run the full career of irreligion,
and of profligacy, and of all the atrocities which scourge and afflict
mankind.
There are persons in this congregation old enough to remember, as I do, a
whole powerful nation, our nearest neighbours, casting it off, as it
appeared, with one consent, and, by cruelties almost unheard of before,
compelling their spiritual pastors and ministers to fly into exile;
neither religion, nor the semblance of religion being tolerated any
longer among them. And what was the issue? This amazing apostacy was
followed immediately by such deeds of horror, by such tragical excesses,
as will never be blotted out of the annals of time. But the same impious
means have been industriously used to produce the same subversion of
principle here amongst _us_ at home; and, God knows, they have but too
well succeeded with too many; so that we can scarcely exult any longer
with our former honourable pride, that our country is as renowned for
religion, for piety and virtue, for good order and submission to
authority, and for the deep abhorrence of all atrocities, as she is for
freedom, for wealth, for victory, and for power.
Finally, then, in bidding you farewell, I earnestly beseech you all, and
through _you_ I beseech the rest who are under my spiritual charge, to
ponder most deeply and seriously, and to lay to heart also, what God
himself spoke with such terrible signs of his power, and what his divine
finger wrote for an everlasting memorial; what He decreed in the
beginning of time when He rested from his marvellous works, and
pronounced them good; and what our blessed Saviour, the fulfiller of all
righteousness, obeyed in the true spirit of the command, and set the
pattern to every succeeding generation of Christians; I earnestly beseech
you all to “remember the sabbath-day, to keep it holy.” And let the
first proof of your remembrance of it, and the first act of keeping it
holy, be your constant attendance here in God’s house—a practice which
will lead you on step by step to every other good work. Let your
ministers lament no more the thin attendance of their hearers, in the
afternoons especially. Come as often as you may, you will scarcely
return without being the better and the wiser for it. I speak not of
worldly wisdom, but of the wisdom which will save your souls. What
blessing is there, of which you stand in need? Come here, and pray for
it in concert with the whole assembly—your united prayers, with one mind
and heart, ascending to God, will fetch every blessing down. Is there
any blessing of which you feel the enjoyment? Come here, and thank God
for it before your fellow-men. Are you ignorant of any of the great
gospel-doctrines which are necessary to be known? Come here, and they
will be explained, each in its proper season, and you will be instructed
to have a due and awful sense of their importance. Have you been seduced
into sin; do your devotions become languid; do you neglect any duty; is
your benevolence cold? Come to God’s house, and you will hear
discourses, it is to be hoped, as well as striking passages of scripture,
which will awaken and arouse you; keep heaven always in your sight; fill
you with heavenly affections; and prepare you to dwell in some heavenly
mansion with the blessed saints of God. _We_, your ministers, I trust,
amidst all the discouragements with which we are surrounded, the entire
absence of so many, the apparent lukewarmness of others, preach,
nevertheless, with the same zeal as if we preached to multitudes athirst
for the word of God, and do not abate one tittle in our fervent desire
for _your_ everlasting salvation. The more, indeed, men neglect
themselves, the more should the ministers of Christ care for them, and
stir up every faculty which they have to rescue them from their dream of
false security. Let not this labour of _ours_ be in vain! Labour for
yourselves as _we_ labour for you; all of us alike, however, trusting to
a greater strength than our own. And I pray God, that, under the
influence of the Divine strength, and guided by his Holy Spirit, _you_
may become the crown of _our_ labours, and enable us to give up the
account of our stewardship over you with joy.
* * * * *
THE END.
* * * * *
LONDON:
ROAKE AND VARTY, PRINTERS, 31, STRAND.
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