The Sun.
London, England, 1840-08-12 00:00:00

PRICE 51.

the slave, or menial, and consideration for his state, and
care to secure to him his necessary periodical relief and
refreshment, is further enforced upon the master's mind,
by calling to his remembrance, that " he was once himself
a servant in the land of Eg3pt, and that the Lord his
God brought him out thence, through a mighty hand,
and by a stretched out arm ;" and " therefore"—tn the
end that he should bear in mind his own liberation from
bondage, and act towards his bondsman with a pity
suitable to the gratitude which he felt, or ought to feel,
for his own deliverance—"therefore,"as well as in com-
memoration of the Almighty's own cessation from his
wonderful works—the memento as to both events having
but one and the same object of mercy and charity in
view—" therefore the Lord thy God commanded tbee
to keep the Sabbath day."
Rest—including in the term refreshment, without
which there is no rest ; rest and refreshment after toil,
and preparatory to the renewal of toil ; rest and re-
freshment to body, and mind, and heart, and soul, suit-
able to the nature, and station, and age, and sex, of
those partaking of it—only avoiding vice, which at all
times, and upon all occasions, is alike objectionable and
damnable—this is the virtue, and this is the grace, of
the commaedment concerning the Sabbath ; and this
is a principal part of the honour and glory which the
good Lord and God challenges to Himself on that
His own delightful day ; and woe—woe to the wretch
—heartless as he must be certainly, not to say impious
—(to be heartless is to be impious)—who denies it to
him, or (for it is the same thing) who denies to the la-
bouring people that grateful and useful recreation to
which they are intitled, and of which the fourth com-
mandment is their charter ; woe be to him who, under
the pretext of preventing profanation, profanes himself
most odiously and cruelly the sacred day—who does so,
by withholding the poor from their desire, and their
need, and their right—their right coeval with and
planned for them before the foundation of the world—
who does so, by condemning the guiltless, which to do
argues a deep guilty stain in the mind that is prone to
such envy and calumny—and who does so, by demon-
strating a total ignorance of, and utter insensibility to,
that principle and sentiment of the Almighty Spirit and
truth and loving-kindness, whereby he has declared
that it is not sacrifice, but mercy which he requires,
and that there is no other offering, however costly, or
however holy, which, in its stead, he will accept from
men

In a late communication (Chronicle of July 18) I
had occasion to allude to the " mistery of iniquity"
spoken of by St. Paul (2d Thess. 2), which I am
very much disposed to interpret as indicating a cer.ain
consummate scheme of diabolical guile and dexterity,
whereby Satan has contrived to avail himself of the
Gospel as a choice instrument for the propagation of
his own religion (which in fact is nothing, and need be
nothing in the world, but the Gospel without the grace
of God—the form of faith, without the power and faith-
ful works thereof) ; and has so breathed his own spirit
into the exterior figure and letter of the Gospel, as to
make its doctrines to be, or answer the purpose of be-
ing, his doctrines—its ordinances his ordinances—its
ministers his ministers, and by means of such craft, and
such teaching and preaching, has effected the produc-
tion upon the earth of a character of wickedness—a
" man of sin" indeed—in whom, under the name and
profession of a Christian, and with a most imposing,
though perfectly unchristian, ostentation of being so,
and an abundance of eager zeal for one religious, or
anti-religious, watchword or another—in whom every
motive acts, and every passion works, which the true—
the sincere and simple—the single-minded and single-
hearted Christian—the lover of his God, and of his
brother also—the man of grace in contra-distinction to
this man of sin—which such an one would shrink from,
and with his whole soul abhor.

Now, Sir, the opinions which prevail respecting the
Sabbath, and which are generally received as scriptural,
appear to me to furnish a striking illustration of the
manner in which this " mystery of iniquity" has wrought
to the effect of making the Word of God seem to speak
a language very different from what it really does,
and in consequence lead to results the very re-
verse of what it is legitimately calculated to pro-
duce. Cessation from toil—respiration from fatigae
—relaxation from restraint—liberty, case, enjovment—
this is the letter, and this is the spirit of God's enact-
ment regarding the Sabbath : in some way, however—
by some mysterious means—some sleight of cunning
craftiness—all this goodness and kindness of his has been
intercepted and prevented ; his word forbidding labour
has been strangely, and with an assumption of extra-
ordinary solemnity and piety, expounded as forbidding
also that recreation after labour, which its main object
is to bestow ; the hilarity, and merriment, and
sportiveness, which, with gratitude to the author of
the boon, and within the limit of temperance, con-
stitute, I do not hesitate to assert, the proper and
acceptable celebration and consecration of the day
1 —these have been made out to be, and awfully
denounced, and penally suppressed, as being, its
desecration and profanation ; and upon the hearts of the
industrious people yearning for relief—and that relief
with forethought provided for them, and by a special
act confirmed to them, by their heavenly Father—
nevertheless, in the name of that very gracious Father
himself, have they been deprived of it—sacrilegiously
robbed of it—and in its stead, and in the same gracious
name withal, upon their poor worn and galled hearts has
been imposed a burthen of irksomeness, heavier far
than their customary tasks, and from which they find
no resource—no escape left open to them, except
amongst the horrid haunts, and the stimulating and
soul-destroying gratifications of vice.
Aye—here it is : here is the wisdom of the serpent,
and here, alas, the triumph of his mortal sting 7 no snare
that he ever laid has, I believe, captured so vast a prey
as this : by this at once he throws his net over all the
youthful, and all the laborious of the community, and
takes them with the persuasion that the entertain-
ment and refreshment which they seek, and which
their natures require, is to be had with him alone,
whilst with God is nothing but severe condemnation
of the same. The child is made to feel himself a
transgressor, or as if he were one, through his game
of harmless play, which his heavenly Father is pleased
the while to see him engaged in, and in which his
angel perhaps is playing with him ; he cannot resist the
inclination nevertheless, neither is there any reason that
he should : Sunday by Sunday the temptation returns ;
the ban is repeated ; the face of God, represented to be
black with frowns, whilst in reality beaming with gentle-
ness and encouragement, is fled from ; and a sense of
the sweetness of evil (that being represented to be evil
which is not so) takes possession of the breast ; the
heart becomes habitually hardened to the voice of con-
science, and to the voice of religion so injuriously belied ;
thence indulgence upon indulgence—vice—crime—the
gaol—the gallows—and, with the victim's last gasp of
forfeited breath, his whole melancholy history leading to
that fatal pass attributed to his early violation of the
Sabbath (violated it was indeed, but not by him, poor
victim, who accuses himself, and is comparatively blame-
less)—and thus is another impetus given to that dam-
nable delusion, whereby superstition and bigotry, and
fanaticism, and hypocrisy, and inordinate folly, and con-
ceit, and ignorance, and impudence, are occupied every
Sabbath day, and every other day too, in severing
thousands, and tens of thousands, and millions, from
the hold and control of reason, and religion, and
Leith, and grace, and precipitating them into the power
of the Devil.
Such, -'..,.. are my views of the Sabbath, which, how-
ever they may
in general, I believe
vary from those of the religious world
to be derived from no other source
than that of the Scri
pieres. The views of Messrs,
Inglis and Goulburn I corda, myself to consider as
nothing better, and nothing else, than an exhalation
from the infernal pit, sent up thence on purpose to
stoprdcaimd
aonvdertuarsn wsiuitith Haenadv e
to
no
distil spiritual and moral poison into the vital element of,
f
the healthful fliagilritleoefedaof.,
human life. On the other hand, with the views o
Messrs. Hume and Hamilton I cordially agree,
• . to the character and revelation o
and regard them as sound Christian
.views,
genial con-
f the
end a Tory,
I understand to I-e a y
:oungman, for the opinion'
Almighty ; and to the latter entleman, whom
I offer the tribute of my sincere respect,
and so independently ex-
ea originally arrived at by
principle of future legislation upon the subjee —t at the
pressed, and which, I hope, ,will becomf atrecohgnised
best Sabbath Bill—the best Bill for improving the ob-
servance of the Sabbath—would be one to draw the
people away from the grosser_ pleasures of sense by faci-
litating their access to the finer pleasures of taste, as
well as to those collections of the rarer specimens of no._
ture of every kind, which, more than the ordinary
scenery and common objects of the earth, arrest the at-
tention, and fix it upon the curiously and wonderfully
working hand of God.
MAURICE JAMES, B.D.
Dover, July 25, 1840. Rector of Pembridge.
y.

On the arrival of the Fame steamer from Rams-
gate, at London-bridge-wharf, on Sunday evening,
a most
heart-rending scene took place. A respectably-dressed
woman, with an infant in he: arms, and two fire children
by her side, was waiting the arrival of the vessel for her
husband, a master shoemaker, lately residing in Spital-
fields, and who had gone to Ramsgate ten days previous
for the benefit of his health. All the passenger; having
left, and he not corning on shore, she went on board to
make inquiries of the captain. The melancholy part of
the case remains to be told, namely, that a letter had been
brought by the crew from the inspector of the police at
Ramsgate, addressed to the City police, that a mari.had
been drowned while bathing there on aturday morng;,
and upon a description being given. it turned out to b the
,h,
husband of the poor creature. She left the wharf e
inm
state bordering on madness. •