In all other matters, where necessity did not move him to contend, he was ready to grant all things før quietness' sake, as his most modest reasons and answers did declare.

OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH.
No. I.

"The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath."

YES, for man, soul and body both, was the rest of the Sabbath appointed. God the eternal Spirit, without body, parts, or passions, is said to have rested on the Sabbath day from all his works of creation : and having pronounced them very good, blessed the seventh day, when all these works were ended, and set it apart in memory thereof, to be kept as a season of rest through all time and all creation. Man fell by disobedience, and this command in common with all others was lost sight of till renewed to the Israelites, and made a sign between them and their God for ever. No less has it ever been a law, and a rule, and a sign amongst Christians in all ages: every Church and sect acknowledges the seventh day as set apart distinct from the others; and though Christians differ as to the ways and degrees, all admit that it is to be employed in a different manner from other days. "In it shalt thou do no manner of work," is a clear rule, which all may understand and obey. Our Saviour gives the exception as to works of piety, John

vii. 23; necessity, Matth. xii. 7; and charity, Lake xiii. 16. Men's consciences must define the rest. There is a three-fold duty incumbent upon all-that they rest from bodily labour, that they rest from worldly business, that they rest from worldly thoughts. Let the labourer, regularly worked and humbly fed, enjoy the additional hour of bodily rest that is again. given to him; yet not be so late in the morning as to hinder his own or his wife's quiet preparations for being in good time at the house of God; or getting off his children in good time to the Sabbath school. Let him if he can share with his family a more substantial and comfortable meal than he can afford oftener than one day in seven but let it be so managed, as being prepared on the Saturday-or supper rather than dinner-so that it keeps no one from Church for its preparation, nor his children from school to partake of it. Let him look well how he spends all the hours of the day when he is not in Church; let him consider his ways during the past week, and as they have surely borne him onward towards heaven, or downward towards hell, let him enquire diligently which way his steps have turned-comparing his conduct by the word of God. Let him enquire into the behaviour of his children during the week; hear what they have learnt, if they have attended school; or see to their learning hymns, or prayers, or texts, or psalms, or catechisms if they are at home; shewing them by his example as well as authority, that the day is holy to the Lord, and so to be maintained by all who acknowledge themselves his creatures, whatever else their condition may be.

FRAGMENTS ON THE PARABLES.

66

Why stand ye here all the day idle?"

IN the Market-place at Hamadan we observed every morning, before the sun arose, that a numerous band of peasants were collected with spades in their hands, waiting to be hired for the day to work in the surrounding fields: and on putting to them, late in the day, the very same question as that of the householder in the parable, we were struck by receiving the same answer,-" Because no man hath hired us."

"Unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to every man according to his several ability."

Not that the gifts were to each according to the measure of his faith and purity, for the faith which purifies is itself one of the chiefest of these gifts; but to each according to his ability, inasmuch as the natural is the ground upon which the spiritual is superinduced. And grace does not dissolve the ground-work of the individual character, nor abolish all its peculiarities, nor bring all that are subject to it to a common standard. (See 1 Cor. xii. 4-31.) The natural gifts are as the vessel, which may large, or may be small, and which receives according to its capacity; but which in each case is filled; so that we are not to think of him who had received the two talents as incompletely furnished in comparison

be

with him that had received the five, any more than we should conceive a small circle incomplete as compared with a large. Unfitted he might be for so wide a sphere of work, but altogether as perfectly equipped for that to which he was destined. For there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And as the body is not all eye, nor are all in the army generals or captains, so neither in the Church are all furnished to be leaders or teachers. Yet, while we speak of natural capacity being as the vessel for receiving the wine of the Spirit, we must not leave out of account that comparative unfaithfulness, stopping short indeed of that which would cause the gift to be quite taken away, will yet narrow the vessel, even as fidelity has the tendency to dilate it; so that the person with far inferior natural gifts yet often brings in a far nore abundant harvest than one with superior powers, who yet does bring in something.

1

"Cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness, there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."

The comparison of the causes which led to this servant's exclusion, and those which led to the exclusion of the foolish virgins, is full of important instruction for all: the virgins erred through a vain over-confidence; this servant through an under-confidence, that was equally vain and sinful; they were over-bold, he was not bold enough. Thus, as in a chart, the two temptations, as regards God and his service, the two opposing rocks on which faith is in danger of making shipwreck,-are laid down for us,

that we may avoid them both. Those virgins thought it too easy a thing to serve the Lord, this servant thought it too hard; they accounted it nothing but as it were a going forth to a festival which should presently begin, while he esteemed it a hard, dreary, insupportable work, for a thankless Master. They were representatives of a class which require such warnings as these,—" Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." Matth. vi. 14; "Work out your own salvation with fear and tembling ;" "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself." He was represen tative of a class that needs to be told, "Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; ye are not come unto the mount that might not be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest;

but ye are come unto city of the living God,

Mount Zion, and unto the and to Jesus, the Mediator of the New Covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel."

Every day is given us either to prepare for eternity, or to enter into it. How important then is time!

It has been remarked, in regard to regularity, that life ought to be like clockwork; for besides the loss of time, occasioned by the want of punctuality, much irritation and ffetfulness are excited.

It was an admirable saying of Philip Henry, The devil cheats us of all our time by cheating us of the present time.'