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sanctioned by the practice of our Lord and his Apostles.(5) John Baptist appears also to have given a form of prayer to his disciples, in which he was followed by our Lord. The latter has indeed been questioned, and were it to be argued that our Lord intended that form of prayer alone to be used, too much would be proved by the advocates of forms. On the other hand, although the words, "after this manner pray ye," intimate that the Lord's Prayer was given as an odel of prayer, so the words in another Evangelist, "When ye pray, say," as fully indicate an intention to prescribe a form. It seems, therefore, fair, to consider the Lord's Prayer as intended both as a model and a form; and he must be very fastidious who, though he uses it as the model of his own prayers, by paraphrasing its petitions in his own words, should scruple to use it in its native simplicity and force as a form. That its use as a form, though not its exclusive use, was originally intended by our Lord, appears, I think, very clearly, from the disciples desiring to be taught to pray, "as John taught his disciples." If, as it has been alleged, the Jewish Rabbies, at so early a period, were in the custom of giving short forms of prayer to their disciples, to be used in the form given, or to be enlarged upon by the pupil at his pleasure, this would fully explain the request of the disciples. However, without laying much stress upon the antiquity of this practice, we may urge, that if John Baptist gave a form of prayer to his followers, the conduct of our Lord in teaching his disciples to pray, by what is manifestly a regularly connected series of petitions, is accordant with their request; but if the Baptist only taught what topics ought to be introduced in prayer, and the disciples of Jesus wished to be instructed in like manner, it is difficult to account for their request being granted, not by his giving directions as to the topics of prayer, but by his uttering a regular prayer itself. That our Lord intended that prayer to be used as adapted to that period of his dispensation; and that the petitions in that form are admirably applicable to every period of Christianity, and may be used profitably; and that its use implies a devout respect to the words of Him "who spake as never man spake;" are points from which there does not appear any reasonable ground of dissent.

where the Church imposing it, neglects to accommodate the liturgy to meet all such changes, when innocent. 2. That the general language of no form of prayer among ourselves, has become obsolete in point of fact; a few expressions only being, according to modern notions, uncouth, or unusual. 3. That the pe titions they contain are suited, more or less, to all men, at all times, whatever may be their "circumstances;" and that as to "opinions," if they so change in a Church as to become unscriptural, it is an advantage arising out of a public form, that it is auxiliary to the Scriptures in bearing testimony against them; that a natural reverence for ancient forms tends to preserve their use, after opinions have become lax; and that they are sometimes the means of recovering a Church from

error.

Another objection is, that the perpetual repetition of the same form of words produces weariness and inattentiveness in the congregation. There is some truth in this; but it is often carried much too far. A devotional mind will not weary in the repetition of a scriptural and well-arranged liturgy, if not too long to be sustained by the infirmity of the body. Whether forms are used, or extempore prayer be practised, effort and application of mind are necessary in the hearer to enter into the spirit of the words; and each mode is wearisome to the careless and indevout, though not, we grant, in equal degrees. The objection, as far as it has any weight, would be reduced to nothing, were the liturgy repeated only at one service on the Sabbath, so that at the others the minister might be left at liberty to pray with more direct reference to the special circumstances of the people, the Church, and the world.

The general character which all forms of prayer must take, is a third objection; but this is not true absolutely of any liturgy, and much less of that of the Church of England. All prayer must, and ought to be, general, because we ask for blessings which all others need as much as ourselves; but that particularity which goes into the different parts of a Christian's religious experience and conflicts, dangers and duties, is found very forcibly and feelingly expressed in that liturgy. That greater particularity is often needed thau this excellent form of prayer contains, must, however, be allowed; and this. as well as prayer suited to occasional circumstances, might be supplied by the more frequent use of extempore prayer, without displacing the liturgy itself. The objection therefore, has no force, except when extempore prayer is excluded, or confined within too narrow a limit.

The practice of the primitive Church may also be urged in favour of Liturgies. Founded as the early worship of Christians was, upon the model of the synagogue, the use of short forms of prayer, or collects, by them, is at least probable. It must indeed be granted that extended and regular liturgies were of a later date; and that extempore prayers were constantly offered in their assemblies for public worship. This On the other hand, the indiscriminate advocates of appears clear enough from several passages in St. liturgies have carried their objections to extempore Paul's Epistles, and the writings of the Fathers; so prayer to a very absurd extreme. Without a liturgy that no liturgical service can be so framed as entirely the folly and enthusiasm of many, they say, is in danto shut out, or not to leave convenient space for, extem-ger of producing extravagant or impious addresses to pore prayer by the minister without departing from the God; that a congregation is confused between their atearliest models. But the Lord's Prayer appears to have tention to the minister, and their own devotion, being been in frequent use in the earliest times, and a series ignorant of each petition before they hear it; and to of collects; which seems allowed even by Lord King, this they add the labouring recollection or tumultuous although he proves that the practice for the minister delivery of many extempore speakers. The first and to pray "according to his ability,"(6) that is, to use his third of these objections can have force only where gifts in extempore prayer, was a constant part of the foolish, enthusiastic, and incompetent Ministers are empublic worship in the first ages. ployed; and so the evil, which can but rarely exist, is easily remedied. The second objection lay as forcibly against the inspired prayers of the Scriptures at the time they were first uttered, as against extempore prayers now; and it would lie against the use of the collects, and occasional unfamiliar forms of prayer introduced into the regular liturgy, in the case of all who are not able to read, or who happen not to have prayerbooks. We may also observe, that if evils of so serious a kind are the necessary results of extempore praying; if devotion is hindered, and pain and confusion of mind produced; and impiety and enthusiasm promoted; it is rather singular that extempore prayer should have been so constantly practised in the primitive Church, and that it should not have been wholly prohibited to the Clergy on all occasions, in later times. The facts, however, of our own age prove that there is, to say the least, an equal degree of devotion, an equal absence of confusedness of thought in the worshippers, where no liturgy is used, as where extempore prayer is unknown. Instances of folly and enthusiasm are also but few in the ministry of such Churches; and when they occur they have a better remedy than entirely to exclude extempore prayers by liturgies, and thus to

Much, therefore, is evidently left to wisdom and prudence in a case where we have no explicit direction in the Scriptures; and as a general rule to be modified by circumstances, we may perhaps with safety affirm, that the best mode of public worship is that which unites a brief scriptural liturgy with extempore prayers by the minister. This will more clearly appear if we consider the exceedingly futile character of those objections which have been reciprocally employed by the opponents and advocates of forms, when they have carried their views to an extreme.

To public liturgies it has been objected, that "forms of prayer composed in one age become unfit for another, by the unavoidable change of language, circumstances, and opinions." To this it may be answered, 1. That whatever weight there may be in the objection, it can only apply to cases where the form is, in all its parts, made imperative upon the officiating minister; or

(5) PRIDEAUX's Connexion. Fol. edit. vol. i. p. 304. (6) This expression occurs in Justin Martyr's Second Apology, where he particularly describes the mode of primitive worship.

shut out the great benefits of that mode of worship, for the loss of which no exclusive form of service can

atone.

The whole, we think, comes to this,-that there are advantages in each mode of worship; and that, when combined prudently, the public service of the sanctuary has its most perfect constitution. Much, however, in the practice of Churches is to be regulated by due respect to differences of opinion, and even to prejudice, on a point upon which we are left at liberty by the Scriptures, and which must therefore be ranked among things prudential. Here, as in many other things, Christians must give place to each other, and do all things "in charity."

PRAISE AND THANKSGIVING are implied in prayer, and included indeed in our definition of that duty, as given above. But besides those ascriptions of praise and expressions of gratitude, which are to be mingled with the precatory part of our devotions, solemn psalms and hymns of praise, to be sung with the voice, and accompanied with the melody of the heart, are of Apostolic injunction, and form an important and exhilarating part of the worship of God, whether public or social. It is thus that God is publicly acknowledged as the great source of all good, and the end to which all good ought again to tend in love and obedience; and the practice of stirring up our hearts to a thankful remembrance of His goodness is equally important in its moral influence upon our feelings now, and as it tends to prepare us for our eternal enjoyment hereafter. "Prayer," says a divine of the English Church, "awakens in us a sorrowful sense of wants and imperfections, and confession induces a sad remembrance of our guilt and miscarriages; but thanksgiving has nothing in it but a warm sense of the mightiest love, and the most endearing goodness, as it is the overflow of a heart full of love, the free sally and emission of soul, that is captivated and endeared by kindness. To laud and magnify the Lord is the end for which we were born, and the heaven for which we were designed, and when we are arrived to such a vigorous sense of Divine love as the blessed inhabitants of heaven have attained, we shall need no other pleasure or enjoyment to make us for ever happy, but only to sing eternal praises to God and the Lamb; the vigorous relish of whose unspeakable goodness to us will so inflame our love, and animate our gratitude, that to eternal ages we shall never be able to refrain from breaking out into new songs of praise, and then every new song will create a new pleasure, and every new pleasure create a new song."(7)

CHAPTER III.

THE DUTIES WE OWE TO GOD.-THE LORD'S DAY. As we have just been treating of the public worship of Almighty God, so we may fitly add some remarks upon the consecration of one day in seven for that service, that it may be longer continued than on days in which the business of life calls for our exertions, and our minds be kept free from its distractions.

The obligation of a Sabbatical institution upon Christians, as well as the extent of it, have been the subjects of much controversy. Christian Churches themselves have differed; and the theologians of the same Church. Much has been written upon the subject on each side, and much research and learning employed, sometimes to darken a very plain subject.

The circumstance, that the observance of a Sabbath is no where, in so many words, enjoined upon Christians, by our Lord and his apostles, has been assumed as the reason for so great a license of criticism and argument as that which has been often indulged in to unsettle the strictness of the obligation of this duty. Its obligation has been represented as standing upon the ground of inference only, and therefore of human opinion; and thus the opinion against Sabbatical institutions has been held up as equally weighty with the opinion in their favour; and the liberty which has been claimed, has been too often hastily concluded to be Christian liberty. This, however, is travellin much too fast; for if the case were as much a matter of inference, as such persons would have it, it does not fol

(7) Dr. SCOTT.

low that every inference is alike good; or that the opposing inferences have an equal force of truth, any more than of piety.

The question respects the will of God as to this particular point,-Whether one day in seven is to be wholly devoted to religion, exclusive of worldly business and worldly pleasures. Now, there are but two ways in which the will of God can be collected from his word; either by some explicit injunction upon all, or by incidental circumstances. Let us then allow for a moment that we have no such explicit injunction; yet we have certainly none to the contrary: Let us allow that we have only for our guidance in inferring the will of God in this particular, certain circumstances declarative of his will; yet this important conclusion is inevitable, that all such indicative circumstances are in favour of a Sabbatical institution, and that there is not one which exhibits any thing contrary to it. The seventh day was hallowed at the close of the creation; its sanctity was afterward marked by the withholding of the manna on that day, and the provision of a double supply on the sixth, and that previous to the giving of the law from Sinai: It was then made a part of that great epitome of religious and moral duty, which God wrote with his own finger on tables of stone; it was a part of the public political law of the only people to whom Almighty God ever made himself a political Head and Ruler; its observance is connected throughout the prophetic age with the highest promises, its violations with the severest maledictions; it was among the Jews in our Lord's time a day of solemn religious assembling, and was so observed by Him; when changed to the first day of the week, it was the day on which the first Christians assembled; it was called, by way of eminence," the Lord's day ;" and we have inspired authority to say, that, both under the Old and New Testament dispensations, it is used as an expressive type of the heavenly and eternal rest. Now, against all these circumstances so strongly declarative of the will of God, as to the observance of a Sabbatical institution, what circumstance or passage of Scripture can be opposed, as bearing upon it a contrary indication? Truly not one; except those passages in St. Paul, in which he speaks of Jewish Sabbaths, with their Levitical rites, and of a distinction of days, both of which marked a weak or a criminal adherence to the abolished ceremonial dispensation; but which touch not the Sabbath as a branch of the moral law, or as it was changed, by the authority of the Apostles, to the first day of the week.

If, then, we were left to determine the point by inference merely, how powerful is the inference as to what is the will of God with respect to the keeping of the Sabbath on the one hand, and how totally unsupported is the opposite inference on the other!

It may also be observed, that those who will so strenuously insist upon the absence of an express command as to the Sabbath in the writings of the Evangelists and Apostles, as explicit as that of the Decalogue, assume that the will of God is only obligatory when manifested in some one mode, which they judge to be most fit. But this is a monstrous hypothesis; for however the will of God may be manifested, if it is with such clearness as to exclude all reasonable doubt, it is equally obligatory as when it assumes the formality of legal promulgation. Thus the Bible is not all in the form of express and authoritative command; it teaches by examples, by proverbs, by songs, by incidental allusions and occurrences; and yet is, throughout, a manifestation of the will of God as to morals and religion in their various branches, and if disregarded, it will be so at every man's peril.

But strong as this ground is, we quit it for a still stronger. It is wholly a mistake, that the Sabbath, because not re-enacted with the formality of the Decalogue, is not explicitly enjoined upon Christians, and that the testimony of Scripture to such an injunction is not unequivocal and irrefragable. We shall soon prove that the Sabbath was appointed at the creation of the world, and consequently for all men, and therefore for Christians; since there was never any repeal of the original institution. To this we add, that if the moral law be the law of Christians, then is the Sabbath as explicitly enjoined upon them as upon the Jews. But that the moral law is our law, as well as the law of the Jews, ail but Antinomians must acknowledge; and few, we suppose, will be inclined to run into the fearful mazes of that error, in order to support lax

notions as to the obligation of the Sabbath, into which, however, they must be plunged, if they deny the law of the Decalogue to be binding upon us. That it is so bound upon us, a few passages of Scripture will prove as well as many.

Our Lord declares, that he came not to destroy the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfil. Take it, that by the "Law," he meant both the moral and the ceremonial; ceremonial law could only be fulfilled in him, by realizing its types; and moral law, by upholding its authority. For "the Prophets," they admit of a similar distinction; they either enjoin morality, or utter prophecies of Christ; the latter of which were fulfilled in the sense of accomplishment, the former by being sanctioned and enforced. That the observance of the Sabbath is a part of the moral law, is clear from its being found in the Decalogue, the doctrine of which our Lord sums up in the moral duties of loving God and our neighbour; and for this reason the injunctions of the Prophets, on the subject of the Sabbath, are to be regarded as a part of their moral teaching.(8) Some divines have, it is true, called the observance of the Sabbath a positive, and not a moral precept. If it were so, its obligation is precisely the same, in all cases where God himself has not relaxed it; and if a positive precept only, it has surely a special eminence given to it, by being placed in the list of the Ten Commandments, and being capable, with them, of an epitome which resolves them into the love of God and our neighbour.(9) The truth seems to be, that it is a mixed precept, and not wholly positive; but intimately, perhaps essentially, connected with several moral principles, of homage to God, and mercy to men; with the obligation of religious worship, of public religious worship, and of undistracted public worship: and this will account for its collocation in the Decalogue with the highest 'duties of religion, and the leading rules of personal and social morality.

moral, it may have circumstances which are capable of being altered in perfect accordance with the moral principles on which it rests, and the moral ends which it proposes. Such circumstances are not indeed to be judged of on our own authority. We must either have such general principles for our guidance as have been revealed by God, and cannot therefore be questioned, or some special authority from which there can be no just appeal. Now, though there is not on record any Divine command issued to the Apostles, to change the Sabbath from the day on which it was held by the Jews, to the first day of the week; yet, when we see that this was done in the Apostolic age, and that St. Paul speaks of the Jewish Sabbaths as not being obligatory upon Christians, while he yet contends that the whole moral law is obligatory upon them; the fair inference is, that this change of the day was made by Divine direction. It is at least more than inference, that the change was made under the sanction of inspired men, and those men, the appointed rulers in the Church of Christ, whose business it was to "set all things in order," which pertained to its worship and moral government. We may rest well enough, therefore, satisfied with this,-that as a Sabbath is obligatory upon us, we act under Apostolic authority for observing it on the first day of the week, and thus commemorate at once the creation and the redemption of the world.

Thus, even if it were conceded, that the change of the day was made by the agreement of the Apostles, without express directions from Christ (which is not probable), it is certain that it was not done without express authority confided to them by Christ; but it would not even follow from this change, that they did in reality make any alteration in the law of the Sabbath, either as it stood at the time of its original institution at the close of the creation, or in the Decalogue of Moses. The same portion of time which constituted the seventh day from the creation, could not be observed in all parts of the earth; and it is not probable, therefore, that the original law expresses more, than that a seventh day, or one day in seven, the seventh day after six days of labour, should be thus appropriated, from whatever point the enumeration might set out, or the hebdomadal cycle begin. For if more had been intended, then it would have been necessary to establish a rule for the reckoning of days themselves, which has been different in different nations; some reckoning from evening to evening, as the Jews now do; others from midnight to midnight, &c. So that those persons in Europe, and in America, who hold their Sabbath on Saturday, under the notion of exactly conforming to the Old Testament, and yet calculate the days from midnight to midnight, have no assurance at all that they do not desecrate a part of the original Sabbath, which might begin, as the Jewish Sabbath now, on Friday evening; and, on the contrary, hallow a portion of a common day, by extending the Sabbath beyond Saturday evening. Even if this were ascertained, the differences of latitude and longitude would throw the whole into disorder; and it is not probable that a universal law should have been settered with that circumstantial exactness, which would have rendered difficult and sometimes doubtful astronomical calculations necessary in order to its being obeyed according to the intention of the Lawgiver. Accordingly we find, says Mr. Holden, that

The passage from our Lord's Sermon on the Mount, with its context, is a sufficiently explicit enforcement of the moral law, generally, upon his followers; but when he says, "The Sabbath was made for man," he clearly refers to its original institution as a universal law, and not to its obligation upon the Jews only, in consequence of the enactments of the law of Moses. It" was made for man," not as he may be a Jew or a Christian, but as man, a creature bound to love, worship, and obey his God and Maker, and on his trial for eternity. Another explicit proof that the law of the Ten Commandments, and, consequently, the law of the Sabbath, is obligatory upon Christians, is found in the answer of the Apostle to an objection to the doctrine of justifiIcation by faith, Rom. iii. 31, "Do we then make void the law through faith?" which is equivalent to asking, Does Christianity teach, that the law is no longer obligatory on Christians, because it teaches that no man can be justified by it? To this he answers, in the most solemn form of expression, "God forbid; yea, we establish the law." Now, the sense in which the Apostle uses the term "the law," in this argument, is indubitably marked in chap. vii. 7, "I had not known sin but by the law; for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet :" which being a plain reference to the tenth command of the Decalogue, as plainly shows that the Decalogue is "the law" of which he speaks. This, then, is the law which is "established" by the Gospel; and this can mean nothing "In the original institution it is stated in general else than the establishment and confirmation of its terms, that God blessed and sanctified the seventh day, authority as the rule of all inward and outward holi- which must undoubtedly imply the sanctity of every seness. Whoever, therefore, denies the obligation of the venth day; but not that it is to be subsequently reckoned Sabbath on Christians, denies the obligation of the from the first demiurgic day. Had this been included whole Decalogue; and there is no real medium between in the command of the Almighty, something, it is prothe acknowledgment of the Divine authority of this bable, would have been added declaratory of the intensacred institution, as a universal law, and that gross tion; whereas expressions the most undefined are em corruption of Christianity, generally designated Anti-ployed; not a syllable is uttered concerning the order nomianism.

Nor is there any force in the dilemma into which the Anti-Sabbatarians would push us, when they argue, that, if the case be so, then are we bound to the same circumstantial exactitude of obedience as to this command, as to the other precepts of the Decalogue; and, therefore, that we are bound to observe the seventh day, reckoning from Saturday, as the Sabbath-day. But, as the command is partly positive, and partly

(8) See this stated more at large, Part iii. chap. 1. 9) See p. 237.

and number of the days; and it cannot reasonably be disputed that the command is truly obeyed by the sepa ration of every seventh day, from common to sacred purposes, at whatever given time the cycle may commence. The difference in the mode of expression here from that which the sacred historian has used in the first chapter, is very remarkable. At the conclusion of each division of the work of creation, he says, 'The evening and the morning were the first day,' and so on; but at the termination of the whole, he merely calls it the seventh day; a diversity of phrase, which, as it would be inconsistent with every idea of inspira

tion to suppose it undesigned, must have been intended | record, above cited, is proleptical, and that the Sabbath to denote a day leaving it to each people as to what manner it is to be reckoned. The term obviously imports the period of the earth's rotation round its axis, while it is left undetermined, whether it shall be counted from evening or morning, from noon or midnight. The terms of the law are, '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.-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.' With respect to time, it is here mentioned in the same indefinite manner as at its primeval institution, nothing more being expressly required than to observe a day of sacred rest after every six days of labour. The seventh day is to be kept holy; but not a word is said as to what epoch the commencement of the series is to be referred; nor could the Hebrews have determined from the Decalogue what day of the week was to be kept as their Sabbath. The precept is not, 'Remember the seventh day of the week, to keep it holy, but 'Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy; and in the following explication of these expressions, it is not said that the seventh day of the week is the Sabbath, but without restriction, The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God;' not the seventh according to any particular method of computing the septenary cycle; but, in reference to the six before mentioned, every seventh day in rotation after six of labour."(1)

Thus that part of the Jewish law, the Decalogue, which, on the authority of the New Testament, we have shown to be obligatory upon Christians, leaves the computation of the hebdomadal cycle undetermined; and, after six days of labour, enjoins the seventh as the Sabbath, to which the Christian practice as exactly conforms as the Jewish. It is not, however, left to every individual to determine which day should be his Sabbath, though he should fulfil the law so far as to abstract the seventh part of his time from labour. It was ordained for worship, for public worship; and it is therefore necessary that the Sabbath should be uniformly observed by a whole community at the same time. The Divine Legislator of the Jews interposed for this end, by special direction, as to his people. The first Sabbath kept in the wilderness was calculated from the first day in which the manna fell; and with no apparent reference to the creation of the world. By Apostolic authority, it is now fixed to be held on the first day of the week; and thus one of the great ends for which it was established, that it should be a day of "holy convocation," is secured.

The above observations procced upon the ground, that the Sabbath, according to the fair interpretation of the words of Moses, was instituted upon the creation of the world. But we have had divines of considerable eminence in the English Church, who have attempted to disprove this. The reason of the zeal displayed by some of them on this question may be easily explained. All the Churches of the Reformation did not indeed agree in their views of the Sabbath; but the Reformers of England and Scotland generally adopted the strict and scriptural view; and after them the Puritans. The opponents of the Puritans, in their controversies with them, and especially after the Restoration, associated a strict observance of the Sabbath with hypocrisy and disaffection; and no small degree of ingenuity and learning was employed to prove that, in the intervals of public worship, pleasure or business might be lawfully pursued; and that this Christian festival stands on entirely different grounds from that of the Jewish Sabbath. The appointment of a Sabbath for man, at the close of the creation, was unfriendly to this notion; and an effort therefore was made to explain away the testimony of Moses in the book of Genesis, by alleging that the Sabbath is there mentioned by prolepsis or anticipation. Of the arguments of this class of Divines, Paley availed himself in his "Moral Philosophy," and has become the most popular authority on this side of the question.

Paley's argument is well summed up, and satisfactorily answered, in the able work which has been above quoted.

"Among those who have held that the Pentateuchal

(1) HOLDEN on the Sabbath

is to be considered a part of the peculiar laws of the Jewish polity, no one has displayed more ability than Dr. Paley. Others on the same side have exhibited far more extensive learning, and have exercised much more patient research; but for acuteness of intellect, for coolness of judgment, and a habit of perspicacious reasoning, he has been rarely, if ever, excelled. The arguments which he has approved, must be allowed to be the chief strength of the cause; and, as he is at once the most judicious and most popular of its advocates, all that he has advanced demands a careful and candid examination. The doctrine which he maintains is, that the Sabbath was not instituted at the creation; that it was designed for the Jews only; that the assembling upon the first day of the week for the purpose of public worship, is a law of Christianity, of Divine appointment; but that the resting on it longer than is necessary for attendance on these assemblies, is an ordinance of human institution; binding, nevertheless, upon the conscience of every individual of a country in which a weekly Sabbath is established, for the sake of the beneficial purposes which the public and regular observance of it promotes, and recommended, perhaps, in some degree, to the Divine approbation, by the resemblance it bears to what God was pleased to make a solemn part of the law which he delivered to the people of Israel, and by its subserviency to many of the same uses. Such is the doctrine of this very able writer in his Moral and Political Philosophy; a doctrine which places the Sabbath on the footing of civil laws, recommended by their expediency, and which, being sanetioned by so high an authority, has probably given great encouragement to the lax notions concerning the Sabbath which unhappily prevail.

"Dr. Paley's principal argument is, that the first institution of the Sabbath took place during the sojourn ing of the Jews in the wilderness. Upon the complaint of the people for want of food, God was pleased to provide for their relief by a miraculous supply of manna, which was found every morning upon the ground about the camp: And they gathered it every morning, every man according to his eating; and when the sun waxed hot, it melted. And it came to pass, that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for one man; and all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses. And he said unto them, This is that which the Lord hath said, To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord: Bake that which ye will bake to-day, and seeth that ye will seeth; and that which remaineth over lay up for you, to be kept until the morning. And they laid it up till the morning, as Moses bade; and it did not stink (as it had done before, when some of them left it till the morning), neither was there any worm therein. And Moses said, Eat that to-day; for to-day is a Sabbath unto the Lord; to-day ye shall not find it in the field. Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be none. And it came to pass, that there went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather, and they found none. And the Lord said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments, and my laws? See, for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide ye every man in his place; let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. So the people rested on the seventh day.'

"From this passage, Dr. Paley infers that the Sabbath was first instituted in the wilderness; but to preclude the possibility of misrepresenting his argument, I will quote his own words: 'Now, in my opinion, the transaction in the wilderness above recited, was the first actual institution of the Sabbath. For if the Sabbath had been instituted at the time of the creation, as the words in Genesis may seem at first sight to import; and if it had been observed all along from that time to the departure of the Jews out of Egypt, a period of about two thousand five hundred years; it appears unaccountable that no mention of it, no occasion of even the obscurest allusion to it, should occur, either in the general history of the world before the call of Abraham, which contains, we admit, only a few memoirs of its early ages, and those extremely abridged; or, which is more to be wondered at, in that of the lives of the first three Jewish patriarchs, which, in many carts of the account, is sufficiently circumstantial and

domestic. Nor is there, in the passage above quoted from the sixteenth chapter of Exodus, any intimation that the Sabbath, when appointed to be observed, was only the revival of an ancient institution, which had been neglected, forgotten, or suspended: nor is any such neglect imputed either to the inhabitants of the old world, or to any part of the family of Noah; nor, lastly, is any permission recorded to dispense with the institution during the captivity of the Jews in Egypt, or on any other public emergency.'

"As to the first part of this reasoning, if it were granted that in the history of the patriarchal ages no mention is made of the Sabbath, nor even the obscurest allusion to it, it would be unfair to conclude that it was not appointed previous to the departure of the children of Israel from Egypt. If instituted at the creation, the memory of it might have been forgotten in the lapse of time, and the growing corruption of the world; or, what is more probable, it might have been observed by the patriarchs, though no mention is made of it in the narrative of their lives, which, however circumstantial in some particulars, is, upon the whole, very brief and compendious. There are omissions in the sacred history much more extraordinary. Excepting Jacob's supplication at Bethel, scarcely a single allusion to prayer is to be found in all the Pentateuch; yet, considering the eminent piety of the worthies recorded in it, we cannot doubt the frequency of their devotional exercises. Circumcision being the sign of God's covenant with Abraham, was beyond all question punctually observed by the Israelites, yet, from their settlement in Canaan, no particular instance is recorded of it till the circumcision of Christ, comprehending a period of about one thousand five hundred years. No express mention of the Sabbath occurs in the books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, the first and second of Samuel, or the first of Kings, though it was, doubtless, regularly observed all the time included in these histories. In the second book of Kings, and the first and second of Chronicles, it is mentioned only twelve times, and some of them are merely repetitions of the same instance. If the Sabbath is so seldom spoken of in this long historical series, it can be nothing wonderful if it should not be mentioned in the summary account of the patriarchal ages.

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"Dr. Paley's next argument is, that there is not in the sixteenth chapter of Exodus any intimation that the Sabbath, when appointed to be observed, was only the revival of an ancient institution which had been neglected, forgotten, or suspended.' The contrary, however, seems the more natural inference from the narrative. It is mentioned exactly in the way an historian would, who had occasion to speak of a well-known institution. For instance, when the people were astonished at the double supply of manna on the sixth day, Moses observes, This is that which the Lord hath said, To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord;' which, as far as we know, was never said previously to this transaction, but at the close of the creation. This, surely, is the language of a man referring to a matter with which the people were already acquainted, and recalling it to their remembrance. In the fifth verse, God promises on the sixth day twice as much as they gather daily. For this no reason is given, which seems to imply that it was already known to the children of Israel. Such a promise, without some cause being assigned for so extraordinary a circumstance, would have been strange indeed; and if the reason had been that the seventh day was now for the first time to be appointed a festival, in which no work was to be done, would not the author have stated this circumstance? Again, it is said, 'Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be none;' and for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days.' Here the Sabbath is spoken of as an ordinance with which the people were familiar. A double quantity of manna was given on the sixth day, because the following day, as they well knew, was the Sabbath, in which God rested from his work, and which was to be kept as a day of rest, and holy to the Lord. It is likewise mentioned incidentally, as it were, in the recital of the miraculous supply of manna, without any notice of its being enjoined upon "But though the Sabbath is not expressly mentioned that occasion for the first time; which would be a very in the history of the antediluvian and patriarchal ages, surprising circumstance, had it been the original estathe observance of it seems to be intimated by the divi- blishment of the Sabbath. In short, the entire phrasesion of time into weeks. In relating the catastropheology in the account of this remarkable transaction of the flood, the historian informs us, that Noah, at the end of forty days, opened the window of the ark; and he stayed yet other seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark; and the dove came in to him in the evening, and lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off. So Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth. And he stayed yet other seven days, and sent forth the dove, which returned not again unto him any more.' The term week' is used by Laban in reference to the nuptials of Leah, when he says, 'Tulfil her week, and we will give thee this also, for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years.' A week of days is here plainly signified, the same portion of time which, in succeeding ages, was set apart for nuptial festivities, as appears from the book of Esther, where the marriage feast of Vashti lasted seven days, and more particularly from the account of Samson's marriage feast. Joseph and his brethren mourned for their father Jacob seven days.

"That the computation of time by weeks obtained from the most remote antiquity, appears from the traditionary and written records of all nations, the numerous and undeniable testimonies of which have been so often collected and displayed, that it would be worse than useless to repeat them.

"Combining all these testimonies together, they fully establish the primitive custom of measuring time by the division of weeks; and prevailing as it did among nations separated by distance, having no mutual intercourse, and wholly distinct in manners, it must have originated from one common source, which cannot reasonably be supposed any other than the memory of the creation preserved in the Noahic family, and handed down to their posterities. The computation by days, months, and years, arises from obvious causes,-the revolution of the moon, and the annual and diurnal re

accords with the supposition, and with it alone, that the Sabbath had been long established, and was well known to the Israelites.

"That no neglect of the Sabbath is 'imputed either to the inhabitants of the old world, or to any of the family of Noah,' is very true; but so far from there being any proof of such negligence, there is, on the contrary, as we have seen, much reason for believing that it was duly observed by the pious Sethites of the old world, and after the deluge by the virtuous line of Shem. True likewise it is, that there is not any permission recorded to dispense with the institution during the captivity of the Jews in Egypt, or on any other public emergency.' But where is the evidence that such a permission would be consistent with the Divine wisdom? And if not, none such would either be given or recorded. At any rate, it is difficult to see how the silence of Scripture, concerning such a circumstance, can furnish an argument in vindication of the opinion that the Sabbath was first appointed in the wilderness. To allege it for this purpose is just as inconclusive as it would be to argue that the Sabbath was instituted subsequent to the return of the Jews from Babylonia, because neither the observance of it, nor any permission to dispense with it, during the captivity, is recorded in Scripture.

"The passage in the second chapter of Genesis is next adduced by Dr. Paley, and he pronounces it not inconsistent with his opinion; for as the seventh day was erected into a Sabbath on account of God's resting upon that day from the work of creation, it was natural enough in the historian, when he had related the history of the creation, and of God's ceasing from it on the seventh day, to add, and God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, because that on it he had rested from all his work which God had created and made;" although the blessing and sanctification, that is, the

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