Selected from: “A Serious Address to Those Who Profane the Lord’s Day” in The Miscellaneous Works of the Rev. Matthew Henry, Vol. 1 (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1855), 503-504.
The Lord’s day was appointed to be an earnest and sign of our everlasting rest, the rest that remains for the people of God. It is intended to remind us of heaven, to fit us for heaven, and to give some comfortable pledges and foretastes of the joys and glories of that blessed state, to all those who have their conversation in heaven, and their affections set upon things above. These are the days of heaven; and if heaven be an everlasting sabbath, surely sabbaths are a heaven upon earth, in them the tabernacle of God is with men. And have you no value for eternal life, sirs? No concern about it? Is heaven nothing to you, or not worth the thinking of? Do you indeed despise that pleasant land, and prefer Egypt’s garlic and onions before Canaan’s milk and honey, and a mess of pottage before such a birthright and the privileges of it? Your profanation and contempt of the Lord’s day plainly saith you do so; and according to your choice you shall have your lot – ‘so shall your doom be.’
You say you hope to be saved, but what ground have you for those hopes, while you plainly show that you neglect this great salvation, by your neglect to commemorate Christ’s resurrection, by which it was wrought out, and your neglect to improve the means of grace, by which you are prepared for it? If you had indeed any good hopes of eternal life, you would not think much to spend one day in seven, in the joyful contemplation of it, and in getting yourselves ready for it. You say you hope to go to heaven; but what pleasure can you take in the expectations of an everlasting sabbath, and of the employments and enjoyments of that world, when you are so soon weary of these short sabbaths which are types of that, and are ready to say, ‘When will they be gone?’ What pleasure can it be to you to be forever with the Lord, to whom it is a pain and a penance to be an hour or two with him now? What happiness will it be to you to dwell in his house, and to be still praising him in heaven, who by your good-will would be never praising him on earth, but grudge the few minutes that are so employed? Heaven will not be heaven to a sabbath-breaker, for there is no idle company, no vain sports, no foolish mirth or unprofitable chat there; and these are his delights now, which he prefers before that communion with God, which is both the work and bliss of that world. All that shall go to heaven hereafter, begin their heaven now; as in other things, so particularly in their cheerful conscientious observance of the Lord’s day.
And now lay all this together, and then tell me if there be not a great deal of reason why you should keep holy the sabbath-day, call it ‘a delight, holy of the Lord,’ and therefore truly honorable; and why you should therefore honor and sanctify him on that day, not doing your own ways, but his, not finding you own pleasure, but aiming to please God, not speaking your own words, as on other days, but speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God? (Isa. 58:13).
Can the entanglements of custom, company, carnal pleasure, or worldly profit, be more powerful with you than all those sacred cords and bonds? Can the pleasing of a customer, the obliging of a friend, much less the gratifying of a base lust, balance the displeasing of God, the dishonoring of Christ, and the wronging of your own souls? I beseech you consider it seriously, and be wise for yourselves!
