or three are met together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.' And as Christians we surely know that whenever God reveals his gracious presence, whether it be in the splendid cathedral, the royal palace, the humble cottage, the savage wigwam, or any other place, His children may say thereof, It is good for us to be here; This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.' Indeed, since He who said to His ambassadors, 'Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel, to every creature,' has said also, Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world,' we will not hesitate, as ministers of Christ, to go every where preaching the word.' And should there still remain in the widely extended field of our labor some portions of country where it would be impracticable at present to erect houses of worship, we shall not only feel that they are entitled to an unusual degree of cultivation; but we shall also consider it a great indulgence if we may be allowed in those places to follow the example of other times, when Noah, Abraham, Moses, Peter, Wesley, Asbury, and George, took their lives in their hands, and calling the people together in tents, groves, streets, school houses, and private dwellings, became the savor of life unto life' in regard to vast multitudes of poor sinners; some of whom 'remain until this present,' while many have fallen asleep,' and are now in paradise with the venerable instruments of their salvation: with whom, and all that shall be redeemed from the earth' hereafter, may we ourselves be numbered when God shall make up his jewels ;' where, in a house not made with hands,' we shall join the general assembly, and Church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven,' to offer up our mingled adorations without ceasing before the throne, and worship the Father in spirit and in truth.'

From the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine.

THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH.

THE SABBATH INSTITUTED AT THE CREATION.

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So many excellent publications on the Sabbath have latterly appeared, that another separate work may well be deemed unnecessary. But as the last Methodist Conference has recommended the societies under its care, to unite with their fellow Christians in making application to parliament to revise and strengthen our legislative enactments, for securing the due observance of the Sabbath, it may be seen desirable that a condensed view of the Divine authority, perpetual obligation, and sanctification of the Sabbath, should be afforded through the medium of the Magazine, to a considerable class of readers, who may not have opportunity of consulting separate works on the subject.

The first question respecting the Sabbath to be considered by Christians is, whether the Sabbath is in force under the Gospel, or whether, as some argue, it is a mere Jewish institution, the obligation to observe which ceased on the introduction of the Gospel. Till this point is settled, it is vain to dwell on the manner of observing the Sabbath; for were it true that the institution remained in force no longer than the

Jewish economy, it is evident, we should not be bound in conscience, we should not be under religious obligation to observe the Sabbath at all, no more than any other of the exclusive institutions of Judaism. My first object, then, will be to show that the Sabbath was not an institution peculiar to the Jews, but that it existed before their dispensation commenced, that it continued when their economy closed, and that it now remains as a Divine institution of perpetual obligation. The early appointment of the Sabbath will be the subject of the present letter.

That the Sabbath had an earlier origin than Judaism is a truth which does not depend on doubtful inference. We have an explicit account of its being instituted immediately after the creation of the world. The inspired historian, having represented the great Creator as resting from His work on the seventh day, adds, And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made,' Gen. ii, 2, 3. In Scripture language, days and inanimate things are said to be sanctified, or holy, when they are set apart for God. Thus the temple at Jerusalem was called holy, because it was consecrated to Divine worship; and thus the various utensils of the temple were spoken of as holy, because they were not employed for common or profane purposes, but were used exclusively in the service of the sanctuary. When, then, God sanctified the seventh day, He reserved it, set it apart for Himself, to be spent in religious exercises; declaring, at the same time, that this mode of spending it should be made beneficial to mankind. He blessed it' to man, while He'sanctified it to Himself.'

Now this portion of sacred history has ever been of difficult interpretation to those writers who regard the Sabbath as peculiar to the Jews; and they have admitted, that if the sense in which it has generally been taken be received, the universal obligation of the Sabbath is at once established. One of the most acute reasoners that ever employed a pen in assailing the sacred institution, frankly allows that if the Divine command was actually delivered at the creation, it was addressed, no doubt, to the whole human species alike; and continues, unless repealed by some subsequent revelation, binding upon all who come to the knowledge of it.' Well, what is the expedient to avoid this conclusion? Why, we are told that the sacred historian does not say that the Sabbath was actually appointed at the creation, but that he merely mentions it in this place, by way of anticipation, as an institution afterward given to the Jews. On this interpretation two remarks will suffice. In the first place, it is utterly irreconcilable with the established rules of criticism. The historian is professedly giving a narrative of the creation; and as it is allowed that he introduces no other foreign matter, why, on the supposition that the Sabbath was not instituted at the creation, introduce the mention of it? And providing that he had had occasion to allude to a transaction of a later age, would he have done it without any intimation of his design? Here are the labors of six successive days recorded in regular order: then, without any interruption to the argument, without the slightest intimation that he is going to slide down the stream of time some twenty centuries or more, the historian speaks of the repose and consecration

of the seventh day; and having mentioned this, he, without any hint that he has been digressing, goes on with his plan of giving a view of the creation and the events immediately succeeding. There is not a shadow of reason for selecting from such a regular and methodical history of consecutive events, a single transaction, and fixing the date of it in a future distant age; and it is difficult to conceive that any one would ever have thought of doing this, who had not some favorite theory to support. What man is there of plain good sense, but a stranger to the controversy on the Sabbath, who would not, on reading the history of the creation in Genesis, at once conclude that the seventh day which the Creator blessed' and 'sanctified' was the very seventh day on which He rested from His work; and not another seventh day two thousand five hundred years afterward? Whatever respect is due to some names which are found in favor of the notion, that the appointment of the Sabbath in the history of the creation is only mentioned in anticipation, the unprejudiced must, notwithstanding, ever regard such an opinion as a lamentable instance of the danger of sitting down to construct a theory on some slender grounds, and then compelling the Scriptures to support it; instead of taking the word of God as our guide, and following it implicitly. Should such a licentiousness of interpretation be allowed, then would all Scripture be involved in obscurity.

But in the second place, in this interpretation sight is lost of the great moral lesson, which was intended to be taught by the work of the creation. The reason assigned in the fourth commandment why we should do all our work in six days and rest on the seventh, is,— For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.' From hence we learn, not only that the Sabbath was designed to be a memorial of the creation, but that the order of the work of creation was meant to convey a lesson of instruction to us as to the appropriation of our time. God could have created all things in an instant, but He occupied six days in His work, that He might teach us by His example how much of our time should be devoted to worldly pursuits, and how much to hallowed rest. To this effect Lightfoot argues in his sermon on the latter part of the fourth commandment:- And what needed He take six days that could have done all in a moment? What reason can we give but that He by His own proceeding and acting would set the clock of time, and measure out days and a week,-six days of labor, the seventh for rest; six for man, the seventh for God? Now to suppose that the Sabbath was not actually appointed till it was given to the Jews, is to overlook the reason for the protraction of the work of creation. If God designed by His own working and resting, to instruct man how to divide his time between labor and repose, then must the Sabbath have been appointed at the creation, or the Divine example could not have become a universal lesson to mankind.

But we are told that there is no account of the Sabbath having been actually observed by mankind till we come down to the history of the Jews. And is that a sufficient reason for our concluding that it was not therefore instituted till given to that people? The book of Genesis

with part of Exodus. is all the history of the whole world till almost a thousand years after the flood; and is it to be wondered at that so brief a history should be silent respecting the actual celebration of the Sabbath? If we are to conclude that nothing was transacted in the world during that extended period, but what the book of Genesis records, the doings of mankind will be reduced to a very small amount. It would be more easy to prove that prayer had never been known in the world till it was imposed as a duty on the Jews, than to prove that the Sabbath was unknown till it was instituted among that people; for there is, as we have seen, an explicit account of the institution of the Sabbath at the commencement of the world, but prayer is never once mentioned at all until God is heard directing Abraham, the founder of the Jewish nation, to engage in prayer. And with equal plausibility might some ingenious theorist undertake to prove that mankind lived without sleep, till the obligation to sleep was laid upon the Jews; for excepting that supernatural sleep of Adam, in which the woman was taken out of his side, sleep is not so much as once alluded to till a deep sleep is recorded to have fallen upon Abraham, and then from that time mention is not unfrequently made of the Jewish worthies sleeping.. Now, unless we are prepared to admit all such absurdities, we must conclude that were there no allusion whatever to the celebration of the Sabbath in so brief an historical narration as the book of Genesis, it would not follow, that, therefore, the Sabbath was not observed in the earlier ages of the world.

.......

But although there may not be express mention in Genesis of the early celebration of the Sabbath, there are evident traces of it; which traces are strangely neglected by those who view the Sabbath as a mere Jewish institution. In the notice which is given of the earliest patriarchal ages, there is mention of that division of time which is made by the Sabbath, namely, the week. Thus in the account of Jacob's marriage, Laban is represented as saying to him, Fulfil her week,' ' and Jacob did so,' the historian adds, and fulfilled her week.' Noah thus divided his time: he sent forth the dove every seventh day; and the practice of the patriarch intimates with sufficient clearness, that the week was known in the old world. And who will venture to decide that we have not reference to the actual observance of the Sabbath in the narrative of Cain and Abel bringing their offerings to the Lord? They brought them, we are told, in process of time,' or, as it is literally rendered in the margin of our English Bible, at the end of the days.' Now as there had been no other division of days mentioned by the sacred historian than that of the week, there is nothing extravagant in the supposition that he refers to that division, and that it was at the end of the week, on the Sabbath-day, that the sons of Adam appeared before the Lord. Numerous references to this measurement of time are found in sacred history, prior to the founding of the Jewish nation; and there are similar notices of the computation of time by weeks, in the most ancient uninspired authors. Collections have been made from their writings, showing that the Britons, Gauls, Germans, Arabians, Egyptians, Indians, Assyrians, and other nations of the most remote antiquity, divided their time also by weeks. Now the week differs from the other general measures of time in its being an arbitrary

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division. The other divisions of time are determined by the revolution of the heavenly bodies, and it is no wonder, therefore, that mankind should have agreed in their use; but no reason can be assigned why those ancient nations should concur in the adoption of so arbitrary a measure of time as the week, except the one to which the sacred historian helps us. He tells us that the Sabbath was given to the first human pair immediately after their creation; and the knowledge of it would of course spread as mankind multiplied. Whether the Sabbath was generally lost in the prevailing wickedness of the old world, or not; it may be presumed that it was preserved with the true religion in the line of Seth; and also that the Sabbath was perpetuated after the flood, in the line of Shem, while the nations descending from the other sons of Noah degenerated into idolatry. But although the Sabbath itself might be lost in those nations, the measure of time which it had originated, being at once established, would, of course, remain. The agreement of antiquity, in regard of this artificial measure of time, is not, however, the only memorial of the ancient Sabbath. In the collections from the writers already referred to, and which the reader may consult for himself in most of the larger works on the Sabbath, there are quotations which show that some of the earliest nations of heathen antiquity, of which we have any memorial, regarded the seventh day as more holy than the rest, as having some peculiar sanctity attached to it. In what other light can we regard such an opinion than as a vestige of the Sabbath? The knowledge of the original institution, and the design and uses of the Sabbath were lost with the knowledge of the great Creator Himself; but still the ancient practice of observing the Sabbath had evidently perpetuated the notion that the seventh day had a more hallowed character than other days.

The judgment of the Jewish writers on the subject is deserving of consideration. Although several claim the Sabbath as an institution peculiar to their nation, yet others of the most respectable of them maintain its universality. Now it is difficult to conceive how any could have adopted the latter opinion, if it were really true that the Sabbath had its first institution in the wilderness, and was imposed on the Jews only. On the principle that the Sabbath was appointed at the creation, it is easily imagined how some of the Jewish writers might, notwithstanding, claim it as peculiar to themselves. Regarding themselves as the exclusive favorites of Heaven, and priding themselves on their high privileges, and observing so few traces of the Sabbath in the surrounding idolatrous nations, the Jews might arrogate to themselves the sole right of the Sabbath, with much greater plausibility than they could urge some of their other exclusive claims. But waiving the consideration of their national vanity, there was a sound sense in which they could justly claim the Sabbath as a peculiar institution. It will be seen hereafter, that it was really given to them in a sense in which it was imposed on none else, and was made to answer, among them, purposes which it could not serve among other people. The Jews might then with truth claim it as exclusively their own, in the peculiar character which it sustained among them; and those of their writers who urge this claim do not, by maintaining it, therefore necessarily deny the universal obligation of the original institution of the Sabbath