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(A. D. 200) says, that it was the custom among the Gentiles, to devote Saturday to ease and feasting.*

We appear, then, to be in possession of sufficient evidence, that the reckoning of time by weeks, among the heathen-a practice of which the antiquity is beyond tracing-was accompanied by a notion more or less distinct, that the seventh day was holy. Now such a notion, as well as the weekly division itself, is surely to be ascribed rather to an original tradition, than to the example of the Jews; a people who before their dispersion were so little known, and after it so little honoured.

That the sabbatical institution, therefore, forms part of the law of God, as it was originally revealed to mankind, we may conclude, for the following reasons:

1. Because the sacred historian, immediately after describing the six days' work of creation, and the resting of the Creator on the seventh day, expressly declares, that God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, that is, devoted it to holy purposes.

2. Because the institution is founded on a divine pattern-on the recorded example of the Almighty himself.

3. Because in the very nature of things, such an institution is necessary for the due and orderly worship of our Creator, and for the effectual culture of our immortal part; and

* Diem Saturni otio et victui decernunt; Apolog.

cap. 16.

thus, like that pure theology from which it is inseparable, it is applicable to the moral wants of all mankind in all ages.

4. Because it involves an acceptable exercise of faith in God, who is pleased to provide for the wants of his children, without requir ing either from themselves, or from the inferior creatures over which they rule, a perpetual succession of days of labour.

5. Because from a variety of hints contained in the history of the patriarchs, as well as from the fact that the observance of the Sabbath was enjoined on the Israelities as a custom already recognized, it may be inferred, that, previously to the Jewish law, this institution was observed by the servants of Jehovah both before and after the flood.

6. Because the division of time into weeks, prevailing among the heathen, especially among eastern nations, (connected as it was with a notion that the seventh day of the week was holy), confirms the antiquity and original authority of the Sabbath.

In conclusion, it is necessary for us plainly to distinguish between the dictates of true religion and those of superstition, in reference to our present subject. I would suggest that it is unscriptural, and therefore superstitious, to imagine that a superior sanctity actually attaches to any one day of the revolving week, over others. As with Homer of old, every passing day and night was sacred; much more must it be so to the Christian, who knows that the presence of the God whom he wor

ships, pervades all space, and his providence, all time. Neither is it possible for us to determine the question, whether the Sabbath day, which we may presume was observed by the patriarchs, was in fact the seventh day of the week, as reckoned from the beginning of the world. It is obvious, that in the course of ages, circumstances might easily occur which would disturb the reckoning; and equally so, that this question is of no practical importance. We must not indeed forget, that from the very revolution of the earth on its axis, it is impossible for all men to keep their Sabbath-day at the same time.

All that we can infer from God's hallowing the seventh day, and from his instituting a Sabbath for men after the model of his own; all that we can gather from the nature and reason of the case or from the example of the Lord's servants in every age, is this, viz. that in the march of time, God claims every recurring seventh day as peculiarly his own. In that perfect wisdom with which he adjusts all the claims of human duty in even balances, he has ordained that THIS PROPORTION of our time should be devoted, without interruption from our temporal callings, to religious purposes. In that pure benevolence with which he seeks the happiness of mankind, and even of inferior animals, he has made (as I believe) a perpetual decree, THAT EVERY SIX DAYS OF LABOUR, shall be succeeded by a SEVENTH DAY

OF REST.

CHAPTER II.

ON THE MOSAIC SABBATH.

WHEN amidst the general corruption of mankind, God was pleased to select a single nation through whom he might preserve in the world a knowledge of his truth, he renewed that external revelation of his law, which had doubtless been bestowed on our first parents.

It is probable that the Israelites, during their long continued bondage in a foreign land, had forgotten many of their most sacred traditions, and had become involved in much ignorance and darkness. The miracles, therefore, which preceded their departure from Egypt, and more especially that preeminent one wrought at the Red Sea, were very important, not only as the means of their deliverance, but as fresh proofs of the truth of their paternal religion. When thus brought, as it were, into contact with the Moral Governor of the universe, and humbled under the manifestations of his power, they were prepared to receive those verbal and written communications of his will, by which their future conduct was to be regulated.

It is a remarkable fact, that the observance of the Sabbath was the first moral duty which

was then enjoined upon them. We have already found occasion to remark, that when the manna was given in double quantity on the sixth day of the week, and ceased to fall on the seventh, this institution was afresh brought to their remembrance; and it was clearly manifested to them, that every recurring seventh day was thenceforth to be dedicated to a holy rest, and to the worship of God.

Afterwards, when the moral law was delivered from Mount Sinai, in the audible voice of Jehovah himself, the keeping of the Sabbath was commanded as one of its essential parts, and was introduced by the term remember : "REMEMBER the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; 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 seventh day, and hallowed it," Ex. 20: 8-11.

Nothing can be more palpable than the distinction maintained in Scripture, between the ten commandments (thus delivered from Mount Sinai) and the civil and ceremonial institutions of the Mosaic code. The former were laws as old as the world itself, applicable to all men, and essential to the maintenance of a true theology and of a righteous life. The

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