Christian Theology - Media Sabda Org

oxen?" Yes, and he mentions them with tenderness: "that thine ox and
thine ass may rest." How criminal to employ the labouring cattle on the
Sabbath, as well as on the other days of the week! In stage coaches, and
on canals, horses are in continual labour. In general there is no Sabbath
observed by the proprietors of those vehicles. Yet so tender and
scrupulous are some proprietors, that they will not, on any account, do
any of these things themselves; but they can be shareholders in stage
coaches, wagons, canal boats, &c., &c., where the Sabbath is constantly
profaned, and from which they derive an annual profit! Good souls! ye
would not do these things yourselves; you only hire other persons to do
them, and you live by the profit! Take heed that you enter all these things
punctually in your leger, for the day is at hand in which you must render
a strict account. More cattle are destroyed in England than in any other
part of the world, in proportion, by continual labour. The noble horse in
general has no Sabbath. Does God look on this with an indifferent eye?
Surely he does not. "England," said a foreigner, "is the paradise of
women, the purgatory of servants and the hell of horses."
On this head, I conclude with, Reader, remember that thou keep holy
the Sabbath day: thou needest the rest of it for thy body; and the religious
ordinances of it for thy soul. God has hallowed it for these purposes:
observe it as thou oughtest, and it will bring health to thy body, and peace
to thy mind. So be it! Amen.
THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT.
See the chapter PARENTS AND CHILDREN.
THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT.
Against murder and cruelty.—God is the Fountain and Author of life.
No creature can give life to another: an archangel cannot give life to an
angel; an angel cannot give life to man; man cannot give life even to the
meanest of the brute creation. As God alone gives life, so he alone has the
right to take it away; and he who, without the authority of God, takes