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have determined for itself, and would have found it hard enough to agree in such a determination, if God had given no intimation of his will in the case.

II. Origin and Date of the Sabbatical Institution.

553. We are informed in the history of the Creation, that the Maker of the world, having finished his work in six days (which he could as easily have finished in one moment, had it not been prolonged for some valuable reason, probably for our instruction), blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: that is, appointed every return of it to be religiously kept as a solemn memorial, that of Him, and, therefore, to Him are all things (Rom. xi. 36). The expression, "the Lord rested on the seventh day' from his work of Creation, does not imply fatigue, for "the Creator of the ends of the world fainteth not, neither is weary;" but the expression means, that having then finished the formation of the world, he ceased from it, and required men also to cease from their labors every seventh day, in memory of that fundamental article of all religion, that the heavens and earth were made, and therefore are governed, by one infinitely wise, powerful, and good Being. And thus was the Sabbath, which word means the day of rest, a sign, as the Scripture calls it, between God and the children of Israel: a mark to distinguish them from all worshipers of false deities.

554. As an institution, the Sabbath consists of two parts -the Sabbath, or holy rest; and the time or day set apart for it. We learn from Gen. ii. 2, 3, that God rested (sabbatized) on the seventh day; and that then he “sanctified," or set that day apart, as the day for sabbatizing, "because that in it He had rested" (sabbatized). Hence the sabbatizing, or holy resting, is one part of the institution; and the particular day set apart for it, is another and a distinct part. So that although for sufficient reasons the day may be, and has been changed, as we shall show, from the seventh to the first day of the week, the Sabbath, as a season of sacred abstinence from worldly labor, may remain in all its original authority.

555. (1.) With respect to the date of the institution of the Sabbath, it is much the most natural to apprehend, that this took place at the time it is first mentioned; and when the reason or occasion of it first took place.

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It is no wonder at all, and no good objection to this view of the subject, that in so short a history, notice should not be taken of the actual observation of it before the time of Moses; for notice is not taken of it during five hundred years after Moses. Yet we know, of a certainty, that in his time, at least, it was ordered to be observed, both in this Fourth Commandment, and in other parts of the law, which direct more particularly the manner of keeping it.

(2.) In confirmation of the idea that the Sabbath was appointed first, not in the time of Moses, but when the human family began, it may be observed that the Sabbath is spoken of in Exodus before the publication of the Decalogue, and is then mentioned, not as a new institution, but as one already known: "To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord" (Exod. xvi. 23). Some indeed draw an opposite conclusion, and consider these words as the first intimation of the Sabbath; but they are obviously mistaken, because Moses appears only to remind them of it, as the reason of the injunction he had delivered to gather a double quantity of manna on the day preceding the Sabbath, since none would fall on that day. If the Sabbath had been a new institution he would naturally have forewarned them of its duties, whereas he confines himself to the simple subject of the manna, forewarning them not to expect it on that day, and therefore to collect and prepare, on the day before, as much as would suffice till the Sabbath was past.

(3.) It seems also to have been justly thought that the word with which the fourth precept begins supposes a prior knowledge of the law: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." It was an institution with which they were already acquainted; and they were called upon to keep in mind the sacred nature of the day, and to sanctify it with the greatest care, especially after this republication of the precept. It is probable that it had been much neglected in Egypt; and as the Israelites were there in a state of slavery, it is not likely that they had been permitted by their cruel taskmasters to rest one day in seven. Through the necessity of their circumstances, and their own indifference, the observance of it might have been in a great measure suspended, and this may be the reason why it was inculcated anew, and

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their attention was so particularly called to it: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy."

(4.) It has been justly observed that the division of time into weeks, which existed in the age of the patriarchs, cannot be satisfactorily accounted for, but by admitting the previous institution of the Sabbath; for the Creation was finished in six days, and if the seventh was not then sanctified, we cannot conceive how the ancients, the Greeks as well as Hebrews, came then to divide time by seven days, rather than by six, or eight, or ten.

III.—Universal Obligation of the Law of the Sabbath.

556. We shall now undertake to show that the Deity appointed the Sabbath to be observed by all men, and not by the Jews only.

(1.) We have seen that it was instituted long before the Jews existed as a people, and of course could not be designed for them exclusively, but for other nations as well as for them.

(2.) If the Sabbath was good and needful for the Jews, it is equally good and needful for all other nations. It has been conclusively shown by writers on the Sabbath that there is a perpetual demand for the Sabbath, in the physical and moral nature, relations, and necessities of man, and therefore it was needed at the commencement of the race, and subsequently, and will be equally needed while the world stands, or while man occupies a place in it.

(3.) The grand and primary reason assigned for requiring its observance, applies to all mankind no less than to the Jews: that reason was, that the work of Creation might be commemorated, and that worldly labors should, for religious purposes, be suspended.

(4.) The institution of marriage is coeval with that of the Sabbath, and if the one is only a Jewish institution, so is the other. But they are both equally intended for all nations, and they are beneficial to all; and hence their obligation rests equally upon all mankind.

(5.) The law of the Sabbath is included among the ten moral precepts, and was engraved twice by God himself on tables of stone, whereas the laws that are regarded as peculiar to the Jewish economy were merely recited to Moses, and by him committed to writing. The other

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nine precepts are indisputably binding on all men: the inference is fair that this precept is also binding.

(6.) The universal and perpetual obligation of the Sabbath seems to be incontestably shown in a single remark uttered by our Savior, "The Sabbath was made for man." He does not say, it was made for the Jews, but for man. So long then, and wherever man exists, there it is his right, and privilege, and duty, to observe the Sabbath, provided that such an institution has been made known to him.

IV.—Objections to this View of the subject.

557. (1.) It is said that the fourth precept is a positive, rather than a moral precept; while the other precepts are strictly moral, that is, founded upon the relations of mankind to God and to each other, and therefore perpetual.

558. Answer. So far as this law requires us to abstain from labor that we may worship God and meditate on his works, it is a strictly moral duty, growing out of our relations to God; and though the proportion of time, and the particular day of the week, required to be thus occupied, could not be learned by studying our relations to God, and are therefore purely matters of divine appointment; yet, since it was necessary, as we have shown, that the proportion and the day should be designated, and God has seen fit to make such a designation, the law has the same binding force as the other laws of the Decalogue.

As to the day, the law states that after every six days of labor, the seventh shall be sacred. Under the Jewish dispensation, and perhaps from the earliest period of the world, Saturday was the Sabbath; but there is evidence that under the Christian dispensation, the next day was, by divine permission, set apart as the Sabbath; and upon this arrangement, the spirit and letter of the law are as fully complied with, as under the previous arrangement; for there is still the consecration of the seventh day, after six days of labor.

559. (2.) The favorite proof-texts of the opponents of the Sabbath are, Col. ii. 16, 17, "Let no man, therefore, judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days; which

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are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ ;" and Rom. xiv. 5, "One man esteemeth one day above another; another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind."

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560. These passages are quoted (says Mr. Phelps in Argument for the Sabbath") as if they had reference primarily and especially to the question of the Sabbath as now agitated (1841). It is assumed that the meaning of the apostle is this:-"Let no man judge or censure you in regard to the observance of the old Jewish or seventh day Sabbath, or any of the other Jewish feasts or ceremonials; for they are all only a shadow which is fulfilled in Christ, and are therefore now no longer obligatory. And, in respect to the observance of the first, or indeed, of any particular day, as Sabbath, one man esteemeth one day, as, for instance, the first, above another; another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind, and observe one day, or another, or none, as he chooses."

561. Such is the assumed meaning of these passages; for no argument is ever employed to prove it. But such is not their real meaning. So far from it, they either have no reference to the seventh or the first-day Sabbath, but only to the other Jewish festivals or Sabbaths; or they declare, simply, that the seventh-day Sabbath is no longer obligatory, and they do it in circumstances which make it a virtual declaration that the Lord's day, or firstday Sabbath, is obligatory.

Beside the ample proof of these assertions furnished in the conclusive argument of Mr. Phelps, it may be observed that the various things connected with the Sabbaths spoken of in these passages were of a ceremonial nature and connected strictly with the Jewish economy; whence it is fair to infer that the Sabbaths were only those that were confined to that economy, and not the weekly Sabbath enjoined in the Fourth Commandment, and obligatory on men from the beginning.

In proof of this interpretation, it may further be observed that the Sabbaths, in common with the other things here spoken of, are represented as the shadow of things to come, at the advent of Christ, and to be fulfilled in him. But the weekly Sabbath mentioned in the Fourth Commandment was not a shadow of things to come, but of

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