We cannot separate, even in thought, when we look at it in relation to God, between the rest of the Sabbath and spiritual activity and devotion. The fact, that it is a _man_ for whom God provides the Sabbath, seems to indicate the kind of use which is to be made of it. The man who deliberately holds himself back from a high exercise, of which God has made him capable, and prefers to make his Sabbath more like a brute’s than a man’s, commits, in relation to it, that most heavy of transgressions, “a coming short of the glory of God.” There is a sin which no written law can touch—an inward sin, a sin of life, which consists in living below the idea which God has implanted; a sin which may co-exist with the most perfect legal righteousness, and which can only be denominated “_a coming short of the glory of God_.” Human rulers may separate in their legislation between the rest and the religious purpose of the Sabbath; they may say, “The first we will care for, it is within our province; the second we can take no cognizance of by formal statutes;” but the Divine Ruler can make no such separation. To rest from toil, and to restrain the thoughts and the heart from going out through His creation and up to Him, is to commit that sin against Him which the Apostle specifies as the fundamental transgression—a coming short of His glory. You see that it is a sin which may be committed in churches and chapels, as well as in parlours, in Parks, in Crystal Palaces, and on sea beaches. I fear, the Sabbath is not to any of us what it ought to be, in the measure in which it ought to be—a season of inward renewing of strength for daily labour—a height to which God affords us leisure and strength to climb, that we may look beyond the stars which watch our daily travail, to HIM.