We will now first notice the origin of the Divine obligation for ceasing from labour on the Sabbath. It is not essential that we should here discuss the question respecting the Christian or Jewish observance of it, nor is it absolutely material whether it is designated the Lord’s-Day, the Sabbath, or Sunday, although the two former appear to be the most appropriate. { 40} There can be no doubt, notwithstanding all that may be advanced to the contrary, that the Sabbath was instituted by God at the creation of the world. “The heavens and the earth were finished, and on the seventh-day God ended his work which he had made; and God blessed the seventh-day and SANCTIFIED it.” If there is any intelligible inference to be drawn from this simple narration, it must be plain that it was the Divine intention to separate one day from the other six for sacred and devotional purposes, and to afford man an opportunity to obtain repose from labour. God not only blessed this day, but he _sanctified_ it, thereby imparting to it a peculiar heavenly and hallowed influence. We will pass over any intermediate passage in the Old Testament which might be brought forward to prove our conclusion, and quote the positive command given by God on Mount Sinai—“_Remember_ the Sabbath-day to keep it HOLY.” Here is a plain and indisputable enforcement of the original obligation, laid on man, to preserve the Sabbath as a previously _sanctified_ day. The same injunction, in a variety of ways, is enforced throughout the entire Word of God. If, in the New Testament, it is not so explicitly commanded, there are abundant instances where Christ himself inculcated and respected a proper observance of the Sabbath. The early Christians universally considered it as a sacred day, and nearly all the ancient writers testify to its being a day set apart for at least outward recognition. Josephus asserts, “There is no city or nation, Greek or Barbarian, in which the custom of resting on the seventh-day is not preserved.” Philo Judæus declares, “It is a festival celebrated not only in one city, but throughout the whole world.” Justin Martyr also says, “We all meet together on Sunday (_diem Solis_), on which God having changed Darkness and Matter, created the world; and on this day Jesus Christ our Saviour arose from the dead.” This last record particularly confirms our previous assertion respecting the origin of the Sabbath. These questions now naturally arise:—Shall the present generation impiously attempt to disannul the primæval law of God, which all ages have formally respected? Is the power of wealth to bid defiance to the eternal law of God? Are the pleasures and luxuries of this world to be held in higher estimation than the undescribable joys of heaven? Is infidelity, in a word, to triumph over Christianity? The Writer must here pause and seriously reflect, and he entreats the reader to do so likewise, on the melancholy if not awful consequences that have befallen individuals, even in this world, who have wilfully violated the Sabbath-day. TRUTH MAY WHISPER DIVINE MERCY RESCUED THEE. * * * If we have done so in an humble and contrite spirit, we ought at once to exclaim, with the penitent Psalmist, “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness; according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.”