Isaiah 58:13-14

I beg the Reader to pause over this passage, and mark the several expressions enjoined to the people of God, for the due and proper solemnization of the sabbath; and surely he will immediately conclude with me, that if in the Jewish Church, which was but a type and shadow of good things to come, this holy day was commanded to be observed with such sacredness; how much more ought the observance of the sabbath to be regarded in the Christian, when the whole sum and substance of the law is in Christ, and Jesus himself is the very sabbath of his redeemed, formed In their heart the hope of glory? The turning away the foot from all pleasure, may perhaps have an allusion to what Moses was commanded at the bush: intimating that in the sabbath we see Christ; and all approaches to God in Christ must be made in sanctity. See those scriptures, Exodus 3:4; Leviticus 10:3. Not doing our own ways, and the like, means that over and above all sacredness of soul, there must be accompanied with it a conscious sense of sin, and a total renunciation of all self-righteousness. Oh! how precious is Jesus, in his sabbaths, in his ordinances, and in all the means of grace and salvation, when the soul is once conscious of wants and pollutions. How little do these men know even the very nature of the sabbath, who spend the smallest portion of these hallowed seasons, these blessed golden opportunities, in any pursuit but that of the one thing needful! How do all faithful souls mourn in secret in the view of those troops of sabbath-breakers of our poor bleeding land, for which the nation mourns, and which come forth every Lord's day to their sport and pleasures!