The careful practice of the Lords Day is that through which God has granted the perpetuity of true religion in the land; the means of the grace, the preaching of the gospel, and the edification of the people of God occur most plainly in this one day out of seven. To neglect the day through casualness, by which our service to God is reduced to personal piety and love for our neighbor, has ever been a means to the destruction of both. 1689 London Baptist Confession -Ch. 22 para.7 Westminster Confession –Ch. 21 para.7 “As it is the law of nature, that in general a proportion of time, by Gods appointment, be set apart for the worship of God, so by his Word, in a positive moral, and perpetual commandment, binding all men, in all ages, he hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a sabbath to be kept holy unto him, which from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ was the last day of the week, and from the resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week, which is called the Lords day: and is to be continued to the end of the world as the Christian Sabbath, the observation of the last day of the week being abolished.” “There can be no permanent worship of God, and no permanent religion on earth, without a Sabbath; and hence it was, that while the observance of the feasts of tabernacles, and of the Passover, and of the new moons, made a part of the ceremonial law, the law respecting the sabbaths was incorporated with the ten commandments as of moral and perpetual obligation; and it will be literally true that all the race shall yet be brought to worship God on the return of that holy day. It was instituted in paradise; and as one design of the plan of redemption is to bring man back to the state in which he was in paradise, so one effect of the true religion everywhere will be, and is, to make people reverence the Sabbath of the Lord. No man becomes truly pious who does not love the holy Sabbath. No nation ever has been, or ever can be converted which will not, and which does not, love and observe that day.” - Spurgeon It is easy to demonstrate by Scripture and by argument, as well as by experience, that religion is just as the Sabbath is, and decays and grows as the Sabbath is esteemed: the immediate honor and worship of God, which is brought forth and swaddled in the first three commandments, is nursed up and suckled in the bosom of the Sabbath. – Thomas Sheppard It should thus be quite evident that this law for the regulation of man’s time, was not a temporary one , designed for any particular dispensation, but is continuous and perpetual in the purpose of God: the Sabbath was “made for man” (Mark 2:27) and not simply for the Jew. –A.W. Pink O what a blessing is Sunday, interposed between the waves of worldly business like the divine path of the Israelites through the sea. - Samuel Wilberforce As we keep or break the Sabbath, we nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope by which man rises. - Abraham Lincoln Sunday is nature’s law as well as God’s. No individual or nation habitually disregarding it has failed to fall upon disaster and grief. - Daniel Webster Show me a nation that has given up the Sabbath, and I will show you a nation that has got the seed of decay. - Dwight L. Moody I believe that the Sabbath question today is a vital one for the whole country. It is the burning question of the present time. If you give up the Sabbath the church goes; if you give up the church the home goes; and if the home goes the nation goes. That is the direction in which we are traveling. -Dwight L. Moody The Second Helvetic Confession Ch.24 “The Lords Day. Hence we see that in the ancient churches there were not only certain set hours in the week appointed for meetings, but that also the Lords Day itself, ever since the apostles time, was set aside for them and for a holy rest, a practice now rightly preserved by our Churches for the sake of worship and love.” What fitter day to ascend to heaven, than that on which He arose from earth, and fully triumphed over death and hell. Use your Sabbaths as steps to glory, till you have passed them all, and are there arrived. -Richard Baxter Hail thou that art highly favoured of God, thou map of heaven, thou golden spot of the week, thou market-day of souls, thou daybreak of eternal brightness, thou queen of days, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among days, Luke 1:28. I may say to thee what the angel said to Daniel, Oh day greatly beloved! Dan 9:23. Thou art fairer than all the children of time, grace is poured into thy lips; God, even thy God hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows, Ps 45. - George Swinnock
Posted on: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 13:49:15 +0000
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