Transcribed from the 1852 Wertheim and Macintosh edition byDavid Price,
OUR SABBATHS IN DANGER:
A SERMON,
DEPRECATINGTHE CONTEMPLATED OPENING OF THE
CRYSTAL PALACE ON THELORD’S-DAY,
PREACHED ONSUNDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1852, IN CAMDEN
CHURCH, CAMBERWELL.
BY DANIEL MOORE, M.A.,
INCUMBENT.
LONDON:
WERTHEIM AND MACINTOSH,
24, PATERNOSTER-ROW.
G. W. MEDES, CAMBERWELL.
1852.
p. 2WERTHEIM ANDMACINTOSH,
24, PATERNOSTER-ROW, LONDON.
p. 3ASERMON.
Mark ii.27:—“And he said unto them, The Sabbath was made forman, and not man for the Sabbath.”
The discriminating symptoms ofhypocrisy or profaneness in a nation, it has been well said, are,that, by the one, outward ordinances are raised to an exaggeratedimportance; by the other, they are disparaged, depressed, and setat nought. In the words just quoted, the aim of our Lordappears to have been to put these institutions in their rightplace,—to enunciate a great principle, by which we couldalways distinguish between certain moral ends for which manwas made, and certain outward appointments which wereinstituted and made for man. To obey God, to resistevil, to fulfil a providential designation, to strive afternearer conformity to the Divine image, to fit and capacitate thesoul for a higher condition of being, these are ends,—manwas made for these. But holy times, piouscommemorations, solemn assemblies, the temples where we worship,and the sacraments whereof p. 4we eat, these are only subsidiary anddivinely appointed means; they are not among the final objects ofman’s creation. They were ordinances wade forman.
This argument, it will be perceived, would be addressed withmuch fitness to men, whose error, in relation to the Sabbath,leaned to the side of an over-strained and impracticableseverity; and who had just been urging it as a complaint againstour Lord’s disciples, that, in passing through a field onthe Sabbath-day, they had relieved their hunger by plucking a fewears of corn. These cavillers are reminded, therefore,that, in the economy of salvation, all outward ordinances are tobe viewed in the light of things secondary and subservient; theirmode of observance to be interpreted in harmony with the ends forwhich they were ordained; and that, with regard to the Sabbathespecially, care must be taken to avoid both the hypocrisy thatwould make the day to be honoured by a rigid ceremonialexactness, and the presumption that would overlook its eternalsanctity as standing in the will of God. It is in this lastview that all the ordinances of religion, when clearly of Divineappointment, acquire a character of deep and momentousinterest. T