there is something far more dreadful than physical calamity and suffering, namely, moral delinquency and spiritual apostasy. Alas, that this is so rarely perceived today!The Life of Elijah. Chapel Library.
Here then is the design of prayer: not that God's will may be altered, but that it may be accomplished in His own good time and way. It is because God has promised certain things that we can ask for them with the full assurance of faith.https://www.monergism.com/sovereignty-god-unabridged
How many a young man, never called of God, has been pressed into the ministry by well-meaning friends who had more zeal than knowledge. None may rightly count upon the divine blessing in the service of Christ unless he has been expressly set apart thereto by the Holy Spirit (Ac 13:2)Gleanings from Elisha (18)
False theology makes God's foreknowledge of our believing the cause of His election to salvation; whereas, God's election is the cause, and our believing in Christ is the effect
There are five things that were given to the father of the human race in the day that he was made. God gave him a dwelling place, a work to do, a command to observe, a help meet to be his companion, and a Sabbath Day to keep. I am utterly unable to believe that it was in the mind of God that there ever should be a time when Adam's children should keep no Sabbath.
It seems clear that the apostles taught Christians to worship on "the first day of the week" (Acts 20:7), the day of Jesus's resurrection, "the Lord's day" (Rev. 1:10), treating it as the Christian Sabbath. These changes were momentous, but the pattern of praise, thanks, desire, trust, purity, and service, which constitutes true worship, continues unchanged to this day.Concise Theology, Ch 37
Under the new covenant... the Sabbath is renewed, with a casuistry of doing good rather than doing nothing (Luke 13:10-16; 14:1-6), and is recounted, on the basis of one-plus-six rather than six-plus-one.Concise Theology, Ch 37
The day was transferred from the seventh to the first day of the week, not on the ground of a particular command, but by the free spirit of the gospel and by the power of certain great facts which he at the foundation of the Christian church. It was on that day that Christ rose from the dead; that he appeared to Mary, the disciples of Emmaus, and the assembled apostles; that he poured out his Spirit and founded the churchHistory of the Christian Church: https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc1/hcc1.i.IX.57.html
the Jewish Sabbath was hedged around by many national and ceremonial restrictions, which were not intended to be permanent, but were gradually made so prominent as to overshadow its great moral aim, and to make man subservient to the sabbath instead of the sabbath to man.History of the Christian Church: https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc1/hcc1.i.IX.57.html
we would say to any young man who is seriously contemplating entering the ministry, Abandon such a prospect at once if you are not prepared to be treated with contempt and made 'as the filth of the world, the off-scouring of all things'The Life of Elijah (chap 30)
we should celebrate the Sabbath not in such a manner (nor with such a strict and exact observance) as was required by Judaism or as superstition had imposed, but with a moderate, reverent rest of the sort that is needed for the worship of God.Synopsis of a Purer Theology, Disputation 21
I find our Savior taking for granted the continuance of the Sabbath when He foretells the destruction of Jerusalem. "Pray ye," He says to the disciples, "that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day" (Matt 24:20).
Why, then, did He "rest," and why is it recorded on the top of the second page of Holy Writ? Surely, there can be only one answer: as an example for man!
The due observance of it, in which the churches of England, Scotland, and America, to their incalculable advantage, excel the churches of the European continent, is a wholesome school of discipline, a means of grace for the people, a safeguard of public morality and religion, a bulwark against infidelity, and a source of immeasurable blessing to the church, the state, and the family. Next to the Church and the Bible, the Lord's Day is the chief pillar of Christian society. Besides the Christian Sunday, the Jewish Christians observed their ancient Sabbath also, till Jerusalem was destroyed. After that event, the Jewish habit continued only among the Ebionites and Nazarenes.https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc1/hcc1.i.IX.57.html
As it is the law of nature, that in general a proportion of time, by God's 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 has 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 Lord's 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.London Baptist Confession 1689
Every church, according to the example of Christ's disciples and primitive churches, on every first day of the week (being the Lord's day), should assemble together to pray, prophesy [preach sermons based on Scripture], praise God, break bread, and perform all other parts of spiritual communion for the worship of God, their own mutual edification, the preservation of true religion, and piety in the church.
We must remember that the Christian belongs to the spiritual realm
as well as the natural, and so he has spiritual as well as natural foes;
hence he needs spiritual strength as well as physical.
When faith be not exercised upon Christ,
it nods and ceases to produce good works. When hope languishes
and becomes inactive, the heart is no longer lifted above the things of
time and sense by a desirous expectation of good things to come.
Then love declines and is no longer engaged in pleasing and
glorifying God. Zeal slumbers and instead of fervour there is
heartless formality in the use of means and performance of duties
A slumbering faith is an inactive one. It is not exercised upon its
appointed Objects nor performing its assigned tasks. It is neither
drawing upon that fullness of grace which is available in Christ for
His people, nor is it acting on the precepts and promises of the Word.
Though there still be a mental assent to the Truth, yet the heart is no
longer suitably affected by that which concerns practical godliness.
Where such be the case a Christian will be governed more by
tradition, sentiment, and fancy, rather than by gratitude, the fear of
the Lord, and care to please Him