Feeling the strength of this position, I will not even descend to what I nevertheless conceive to be very tenable ground, viz. the obligation on all Christians to keep holy a seventh day, from its association with the other commandments in that code of moral laws, which was not abrogated, but rather confirmed by our Saviour.' Had you confined your discussion to the manner in which the Lord's-day ought to be observed, although I might have differed from you in opinion, I should not have felt myself called on officially to enter into the lists of controversy. But since you endeavor to set aside the primeval sanctification of a seventh day, to propagate erroneous notions of the Sabbath, and to prove that our observance of Sunday, or the Lord's-day, is a mere human ordinance, unsanctioned by divine authority, I should be lamentably deficient in my duty if I did not step forward in vindication of what I conceive to be the truth. I now then proceed to show, 1. That a seventh day was immediately after the creation sanctified by the Creator, or set apart to be kept holy in eternal remembrance of his having rested from his works. 2. That, after this ordinance had fallen into neglect through the corruption and ignorance of mankind, it was solemnly renewed in the moral law of the Israelites, and added to their ceremonial law, with strict observances and under severe penalties, to be a sign of their deliverance from Egyptian bondage, a covenant between them and their Deliverer, and a type of that rest which should come from the Messiah, by whom their ceremonial law was to be abolished. 3. When this sign, covenant, and type was actually abolished, by the manifestation of Christ in the flesh, the primeval institution still remained in full force, to be observed by Christians in the spirit of the gospel, and adapted to the covenant of grace. SECT. I. My first proposition, I assert, is made out by the testimony of Moses in Genesis ii. 3. To my mind nothing can be more satisfactory than this evidence. The sanctification of the seventh day is here plainly declared to have been instituted, because God rested on that day, or ceased from the works of creation. The declaration is made by the historian exactly in its proper place, immediately after his account of the six days' of labor; whilst no other reason is, or can be assigned for the labor and rest of that Almighty Being, who could in a moment have called the universe See Matt. v. 17. xix. 17, 18, &c. into existence, but a design of securing the allegiance of his newlycreated subjects, by giving them both a motive and a precedent for resting from their labors, that they might meditate on the works of their Sovereign Benefactor. The peculiar nature therefore of the ordinance, its propriety and adaptation to general usage, naturally lead us to expect its institution immediately after the creation of the world. You, however, assume that the passage of Genesis, in which this appears to be so stated, is written proleptically, and not in the order of succession: you suppose that God, who rested at the end of six days from the works which he had performed for the benefit of all mankind, did, after the lapse of 2453 years, then bless the seventh day, and sanctify it, to be a sign or covenant between himself and his chosen people. With reference to such an interpretation, which is by no means a new one, Archbishop Sharp' very pertinently asks, "Whether any man of sense, that should meet with such a passage in any other historian, could possibly so interpret it?" I think not: nay more, I think it was not so interpreted by the most learned and inquisitive of the Jews themselves; certainly not by the philosophic Philo. This eminent writer, in his treatise concerning the creation of the world, declares, "that the Creator, after he had taken six days in forming it, peculiarly honored the seventh day, (where observe he does not style this day a Sabbath,) and deigned to call it holy for it is a festival not of one city or region, but of the whole world." He also denominates it rou xooμov yevéσiov, "the birth-day of the world." 2 Let us, however, consider the reason which induces you and others to support this negative argument. You think that if a seventh day had been sanctified from the first, the sacred historian would, in narrating the annals of so long a period as that which occurred between the creation of the world and the Exodus, have made some mention of the ordinance itself, or of the guilt of those by whom it was violated: from his not having done this, you argue to the non-existence of the ordinance. In answer to this reasoning, I would propose to your consideration a few instances of omission, analogous to that of which you complain, in the very brief and summary annals of the patriarchal ages. The first is that of public worship, a custom which I find intimated only in two places: 3 these, however, are quite sufficient to show that it was both ordained and observed: yet when human nature is considered, we can scarcely conceive how an observance Serm. xii. Vol. IV. p. 271. 2 De Mundi Opificio, p. 13. ed. Paris. 3 Gen. xxxv. 2, 3. Job i. 6. of the custom could be kept up, without the regular recurrence of a day sanctified to the purposes of devotion. The next instance is that of circumcision; the practice of which rite, though regularly observed by the Jews, is not once recorded in Scripture, from the time of their settling in Canaan to the circumcision of our Saviour. Thirdly, the observance of the recently-instituted Sabbath itself, with all its pains and penalties, is not mentioned in any of the six books which immediately follow the Mosaic code, and which contain a much more particular history of events than the very compendious book of Genesis. These analogies are perfectly satisfactory to my mind, in accounting for the omission in question-the conviction they are calculated to produce may perhaps be supported by the consideration, that no peculiar penalties were annexed to the violation of his ordinance by the Almighty at its first institution: perhaps also, in the early ages of the world, the very strictness with which it was observed scarcely gave occasion for any allusion to it; and when mankind afterwards became wholly corrupt, the sin of violating it would merge in others of a deeper dye: there would be no need to mention the breach of this precept, when the neglect of the whole worship of God, which comprehended and included it, was the subject of reprehension. With regard to the Almighty's permitting mankind to remain for so long a period with only a partial knowlege, and in total neglect of this law, which he did not think proper to restore till after the lapse of many ages, we must not measure the acts of the Supreme Being by our standard of right and wrong; we must be content to remain ignorant of those reasons which induced him "to wink at the times of this ignorance," until he shall please to enlighten us. But although no actual mention is made of the ordinance for so long a period in the writings of Moses, still we may find traces therein leading us to the conclusion that it was both given and known from the first. The strongest of these perhaps is the established reckoning of time by weeks, which cannot be accounted for otherwise than by a reference to this divine decree; since it arises not, like the computation of days and months and years, from obvious and natural causes, viz. the revolutions of our planetary system. The observance of this septenary division of time may however be traced back through many intermediate periods to the remotest ages of the world. Seven days were allowed to Noah for collecting the animals into his ark; and seven days did that patriarch stay, and again "other seven days," when he sent out the dove; as if he expected the peculiar favor of God to be manifested on that day, which he had separated for his own glory. The same institution seems alluded to in that week of years, which was observed in the patriarchal ages, and incorporated, as it were in memory of the ancient custom, into the Jewish ordinances. Thus Laban proposed to Jacob the same service of seven years for Rachel, which he had already performed for her sister Leah; and this he calls “fulfilling her week." The period of a week seems also to have been generally adopted in mourning and lamentation for the death of friends, as well before as after the institution of the Jewish Sabbath: thus Joseph made a mourning for his father seven days; the friends of the afflicted Job lamented with him seven days; and a seven days' fast was observed by those who interred the bones of Saul and his sons.4 In addition to this we may remark an extraordinary sanctity and importance attached to the number seven, which pervades all the sacred writings. Of this peculiarity Cruden's Concordance will exhibit to you a concise but perfect view: without pursuing it through all its various, and in some instances perhaps fanciful analogies, I shall merely notice it in the sacrificial rites of the patriarchal times. In the days of Job seven bullocks and seven rams were offered up, as a burntoffering, by the Divine command; and the very same number of each were sacrificed on the seven altars built by Balaam. These circumstances are worthy of attention, and ought to be satisfactorily explained by him who denies the primeval institution of a seventh holy day.6 I See Ecclesiasticus xxii. 12. 4 1 Sam. xxxi. 13. 2 Gen. 1. 10. 3 Job ii. 19. * The number seven seems to have been held in equal reverence by the Pythagoreans and other philosophical sects. The Cumaan sibyl gives to Æneas orders to make a sacrifice similar to that of the Chaldean diviner. Nunc grege de intacto septem mactare juvencos En. vi. 38. Josephus accounts for the eminent personal qualities of Moses from the circumstance of his being the seventh in descent from Abraham. Antiq. Jud. lib. ii. 6. See also Philo on this subject, who enters on it at large in his treatise De Mundi Opificio, p. 14. I conceive that the period of the week was known to the Greeks in very early ages, from the following passages in one of the most ancient of their poems. See Odyssey, к. 80. μ. 397. ¿. 249. o. 475. From a consideration of these passages, I am inclined to think that Homer had a knowlege of the septenary division of time; but I will not weaken my argument by adducing testimony to this point, which will not bear examination, as so many eminent writers on this subject, indeed all who have come under my notice, appear to have done. When Theophilus of Antioch declares that all mankind make peculiar mention of a seventh day, though they know not the reason, I am inclined to be But another reason which induces me to think that Moses did not make use of the figure prolepsis, is this: when God's com lieve him under certain limitations. The same credit I give to Clement of Alexandria, when he asserts, that not the Jews only, but the Greeks also, are well acquainted with a seventh day. Strom. lib. v. The authorities, however, which he cites in favor of his opinion, are not only foreign to his purpose, but I am afraid distorted, misquoted, and even forged, for the sake of supporting that opinion. I am sorry to be forced to make such a charge against such an author, and I can only hope that he like his followers took the passages on trust from some preceding writer, or that he saw copies of ancient Mss. different from those which have come down to our times. Having made the charge, however, I am bound to support it. The first author which he quotes is Hesiod: Πρῶτον ἔνη τετράς τε, καὶ ἑβδόμη ἱερὸν ἦμαρ· Ἑβδομάτη δ ̓ αὖθις λαμπρὸν φάος ήελίοιο. Now in the first of these lines the poet is not describing the days of the week, but those of the month, and he calls the seventh day of the month sacred, because it was the birth-day of Apollo: Τῇ γὰρ Απόλλωνα χρυσάορα γείνατο Λητώ. The second verse I cannot discover in Hesiod, but it appears to refer to the same origin. He next quotes Homer still more unfortunately: 1. Ἑβδομάτη δ' ἔπειτα κατήλυθεν ἱερὸν ἦμαρ. In looking for this verse among those of Homer, I have long strained my eyes in vain, and several of my friends have done the same with no better success. 2. 'Eẞdóun hv ieph. The same may be said of this. 3. Εβδομον ἦμαρ ἔην, καὶ τῷ τετέλεστο ἅπαντα. Here I find the worst fault of all; for ßdoμov appears to be substituted for TÉTρаTOV, as it exists in all the copies of Homer which I have seen. Even if Booμov were the right reading, the line would have nothing to do with the subject in question. 4. Ἑβδομάτῃ δ' ἐοῖ λίπομεν ῥόον ἐξ ̓Αχέροντος. This line also I am unable to find in Homer. He next quotes some verses from Callimachus, which would be much more to the purpose in substantiating his opinion, were it not probable that Callimachus, an Alexandrian poet, acquired from the Jews of Alexandria these notions, which might be deduced from the Jewish Sabbath rather than the patriarchal institution. After this he appeals to the Elegies of Solon. If any of these assisted him, they must have been some which have not reached our times. Amongst those which we possess, I can find only the fourteenth, as it stands in Professor Gaisford's excellent edition of the Poet. Gr. Min. which has the remotest bearing on the subject. This merely treats of the age of man, divided into periods of seven years, showing how his faculties, &c. alter at each period: moreover, it may be observed that Porson considered this elegy as spurious. Eusebius in his Præp. Evang. quotes all these authorities of Clement, and gives them also, together with some others from Linus, or as he might better be styled, Pseudo-Linus, in an extract from one Aristobulus, |