The Methodist Review (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ther the " God of harvest" may please to send, let him trust th,e fruits of the earth to his care, who will honour them that honour him. The law of heaven is, "on the seventh day thou shall rest,"" even " in ploughing time, and in harvest thou shah rest." ;Dr. Adam Clarke, on the above passage, remarks, "This commandment is worthy of especial note: many break the Sabbath on the pretence of absolute necessity, because, if in harvest time the weather happens to be what is called bad, and the Sabbath day be fair and fine, they judge it perfectly lawful to employ that.day,in endeavouring to save .the fruits of the field, and think that the goodness of the day,.beyond the preceding, is an ,indication from Providence that it should be thus employed. But is not the command above, pointed directly against tbis ? I have known this law often broken on this pretence, and have never been able to discover a single instance, where the persons who acted thus, succeeded.one whit better than their more conscientious neighbours, who availed themselves of no such favourable circumstances, being determined to keep God's law, even to the prejudice of their secular interests: but no man ever yet ultimately suffered loss by a conscientious attachment to his duty 10 God. He who.is willing .and obedient, shall eat the good of the land ; and God will over distinguish those in his providence, who respect his commandments." On the words, " Even in earing-time and in harvest thou halt rest," Mr. Benson has observed in his Commentary, "AH worldly business must give way to that holy rest: harvest-work will prosper the better for the religious observation of the sabbath-day in harvest time. Hereby we must shew that we prefer our communion.with God., before either the business or the joy of harvest." The...