son, and daughter, and man-servant, and maid-servant, and cattle, and stranger within the gates, that they may rest also. And in this, its reference to man, the command is enforced by saying, "Remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt" (Deut. v. 15). The Mosaic Sabbath having this twofold reference the former an universal character, the latter a local one; the former applicable to all men, the latter only to the bondsmen of Egypt-we, as Christians, and belonging to an universal and not a local dispensation, are bound by the general law, and not by that which is local. In following out this inquiry we shall find, that in as far as the Sabbath is Mosaic, so far it is local, and cannot be kept out of "the land :" that it is not only vain, but degrading and sinful, for Christians to keep the Jewish Sabbath: and that the Jews themselves shall, when restored to their land, keep the Sabbath on the first day of the week, and not on the seventh.

It is obvious at once, that every religious ordinance connected with the Jewish Sabbath is rendered impracticable by the destruction of the temple and priesthood, and the consequent abolition of sacrifices; but it is as clear, though not so obvious, that all the prohibitory commands, and all the minor observances of the Mosaic Sabbath, are rendered impossible by banishment from the land; and the attempt of the Jews to keep them in other countries, is either an ignorant substitution of Rabbinical superstitions for the commands of God, or hypocritical mockery. The Law forbad work of any kind, and kindling of fire and dressing their food, and journeying, except to and from the synagogue: forbad it to them, to their servants, to the stranger within their gates. The time of the Sabbath, again, cannot be fixed any other country: for the Law required that it should be kept from evening to evening (Lev. xxiii. 32); but in northern and southern latitudes there is no evening for some months in the year; and as the longitude varies, the evening of necessity changes, at the rate of an hour in every fifteen degrees; and the Jews, during the dispersion in different countries, are, in fact, keeping their Sabbath at every variety of time between Friday morning and Sunday evening: and if a Jew should travel eastward round the globe, keeping his Sabbath regularly on the same day, he would find on arriving at Jerusalem that he had thrown back his Sabbath a whole day, and would be keeping it on Friday; and another travelling westward, would, in like manner, throw it forward, and find himself keeping it on Sunday. The Sabbath is cursive, according to change of longitude.

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But that which is merely vain and impracticable in a Jew, is degrading and sinful in a Christian; degrading, as a desertion of our high Christian calling, an abandonment of the freedom of the Gospel, and a bondage to the beggarly elements of the

law; sinful, as a falling away from grace, and an esteeming Christ to have died in vain. For though under the Law it was easy to commemorate both the creation and the deliverance from Egypt on the Sabbath; there being one day only in the week set apart, and the rejoicing of the creation sabbath being no way incompatible with the rest enjoined by the Law; the case is altered now. Now, under the Gospel, there is a change of the Sabbath-day, the Lord's-day is the Christian Sabbath; and one or other of the days must be abandoned; the first and the seventh day cannot both be kept. For it is not only absurd, but a culpable marring of the whole institution, to keep two days in the week: on creation grounds, it mars the commemoration of God's six days' work, it divides and nullifies the seventh day's rest; reasons abundantly sufficient to forbid the observance of both days, and to which the least consideration will add numerous others of a typical and practical kind. Had it been possible to allow two sabbaths to be kept, we may reasonably suppose that permission would have been given at the deliverance from Egypt, when it was necessary to commemorate two succeeding days, the Passover on the 14th, the act of deliverance; and the deliverance itself on the 15th. But to preserve the seventh recurring day, and still commemorate both days, the first and seventh days of that week are hallowed to the Lord (Exod. xii. 16), and the other weeks of the year proceed regularly. One day only in seven can be lawfully kept as a Sabbath: and we now shall endeavour to shew that the Lord's-day is the true, the Creation and Patriarchal Sabbath; and that the Saturday Sabbath is a Mosaic ordinance, binding only upon those who are under the Law, abolished under the Gospel both to Jew and Gentile, and to be changed even to the Jews before their national conversion, under the Ezekiel dispensation.

A popular argument for the Jewish Sabbath is drawn from the assumption, that, being commanded at Sinai with such awful sanctions, it should be as solemnly repealed, or the change commanded with still greater solemnity. In this assumption there are three mistakes: the Jewish Sabbath was not fixed at Sinai, but before their arrival there, by the double portion of manna (Exod. xvi. 22); the thunders of Sinai were not the sanction of the law, but of the LORD, the Giver of the law, and the people covenanted to obey HIS VOICE before a word of the law was uttered (Exod. xix. 8); the change of the day was really in coming out of Egypt, our Lord's-day not being really a change, but only a restoration of the original Creation Sabbath.

The Jewish Sabbath was so manifestly fixed by the manna, and not by the giving of the law, that we need not enlarge on this point. But we revert to it in order to observe, that from the surprise expressed by the people, and from the emphatic

words of Moses, it seems probable that it did not occur on the day expected by them; and their going out to gather on the newly fixed Sabbath, confirms this view. For Moses had told them, Exod. xvi. 5, On the sixth day it shall be twice as much as they gather daily; but on the sixth day of ver. 22, when they did gather twice as much, they appeal to Moses, who declares, "To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord;" and this is the first record of keeping the Sabbath of the Lord. The Sabbath, thus fixed, is considered as a law and a commandment of God, before they came to Sinai; for when they went out to gather (ver. 27), "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." The day on which the Sabbath was thus given by the Lord, we now have to examine, and shall shew that it was of necessity a change, or anticipation of the Patriarchal Sabbath; a change made at the coming out of Egypt, fixed by the falling of the manna.

In this inquiry, the different times when the day has been reckoned to begin is an important element; for we shall find that a change in the time of beginning the day, will produce a change in the day. In strict propriety of speech, day is the period of light, night the period of darkness; for "God called the light day, and the darkness called he night" (Gen. i. 5); and a day is properly the time between sun-rise and sun-set. The day, too, was under the rule of the sun, the night of the moon; for "God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night" (Gen. i. 16). The sun remains unchanged, the perpetual ruler of the day; but the other lights of the firmament, with the moon, the ruler of the night, are made, by their various changes, "for signs and for seasons, and for days and years." The moon in its monthly round, by its four phases, marks the week; the stars in their changing aspects, and the earth in its annual round, mark the seasons and the year: but these changes could not thus mark the periods, did not one standard of comparison remain fixed; this standard is the unchangeable sun, the centre and the governor of the planetary system*. At the creation, the moon, as the lesser light to rule the night, rose with the setting of the sun it must have been full moon and the deliverance from Egypt, and the resurrection of Christ, the earnest of our deliverance from the grave, were also both at the full of the moon. Adam, the last work of creation, knew not by his own reckoning that it was the sixth day of creation, but received it by the word of God: the Sab

*The glory of the sun led to sun-worship among the heathen; for the rebuke of which God has shewn his word in the mouths of men to be able to stay the course of the sun (Josh. x.; Isai. xxxviii.)

bath was truly Adam's first day, being the first day of his life, the first defined period of his existence. Creation is declared to be a work of six days, and the seventh to be a day of rest; the whole six days were therefore work, and the rest began not till the seventh; consequently Adam was not created till the end of the sixth day, as any remainder of that day after his creation would be a time of rest. But Eve was also created on the sixth day; and the deep sleep of Adam, which preceded her creation, typified death and resurrection, by which the church is made meet for her Husband: and if this sleep was at evening, and the creation went on during the sixth night, the type would be beautifully complete and striking; Adam and Eve each awakening to behold the goodliest and the fairest object of creation, and both in gratitude and joy lifting up their souls in adoration and thanksgiving to the Lord their God, on his own day*; joined therein by the whole creation in choral symphony, and all the sons of God shouting for joy. This was the first Sabbath, the Lord's-day, Adam's first day; dedicated to his Creator, his Father, and his God, with all his heart, and soul, and mind, and strength. The morrow's dawn would be Adam's second day; and so for his whole week of common days, the sixth of which would be the seventh of time, the seventh of his life, the last day of his week; and the second Sabbath of his life would be the eighth day, the beginning of a new week; the first day of the week to him, not the seventh.

The next portion of time remarked by Adam would be the month, measured by the moon's period of revolution; and as the moon was full at creation, Adam would reckon from one full moon to another; from his first evening till the time when the moon again reached the same point in the heavens. The beginning of the year we cannot so positively fix, but it has been concluded that it began with the autumnal equinox, in September; all the fruits of the earth being of course in full perfection at creation, and the days and nights of equal length; which commencement from Tisri was retained by the Israelites till the coming out of Egypt.

The beginning of the year, of the month, and of the day, was at the Exode thrown back half the period of each. The year, which began in Tisri, or September, was thrown back to Abib, Nisan, or March; and both reckonings are used by the Jews to the present time, the original, from Tisri, for all civil affairs; the Mosaic, from Abib, for all ecclesiastical affairs (Exod. xii. 2.) "This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you." (xiii. 4.) The

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"This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church" (Eph. v. 32). Prepared as a bride adorned for her husband" (Rev. xxi. 2 ; Ps. viii.; xix.; xcvi. 10; xcviii. 7; Job xxxviii. 7).

month must have begun originally at the full of the moon, though it is not recorded in Scripture; but the new moon is continually spoken of under the Mosaic law as the beginning of the month as Num. x. 10; xxviii. 11; 1 Chron. xxiii. 31; 2 Chron. ii. 4; Neh. x. 33; Isai. 1. 13.

The day, till the giving of the Law, began with sun-rise, but under the Law began from the evening before, as it is still reckoned by the Jews. This is demonstrable from Numbers xxxiii. 3, compared with Lev. xxiii. 32; for the Passover was ordained on the fourteenth day of the month at even (Ex. xii. 6), and the Feast of Unleavened Bread began the same fourteenth day at even, (xii. 18), which feast continued till the one-and-twentieth day, the first day and the seventh day being both a holy convocation to the Lord, and therefore a Sabbath at the beginning and ending of the same week (xii. 16). But the Passover was the night following the fourteenth day of the month: for the lamb was slain in the evening of the fourteenth day, eaten during the night; at midnight the destroying angel passed over the doors of the Israelites, who were forbidden to leave their houses till morning; and that morning was the fifteenth day of the month, and the morrow after the Passover (Num. xxxiii. 3). Up to this time, therefore, day was reckoned to begin from sun-rise; for this night of the Passover" to be much observed to the Lord" (Exod. xii. 42) was the fourteenth day, as then reckoned, but would become the fifteenth day by the reckoning appointed under the Law, and still in use among the Jews; for it is commanded (Lev. xxiii. 32), "from even unto even shall ye celebrate your Sabbaths."

But the change is further confirmed, and put beyond doubt, by the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which was commanded to be held from the fourteenth day of the month at even, until the one-and-twentieth day at even (Exod. xii. 18); yet the fifteenth day is called the feast (Num. xxviii. 17), though the Passover had just been called the fourteenth (ver. 16). This is only to be explained by the change of reckoning; a change which the necessity of commemorating two otherwise incompatible things required, bondage and deliverance, misery and joy, hasty flight and rest. And we shall see also that these two ideas are preserved by throwing back the Sabbath one day under the Law, making it the last day of bondage, the end of a week of toil; and pointing the hopes forward to the coming Sabbath, the first day of deliverance, the eighth day of the Feast of Tabernacles at the end of the Jewish year, the Hosanna-Rabba, the beginning of the Millennial and resurrection joy. The Feast of Unleavened Bread began on the fifteenth (Lev. xxiii. 6; Num. xxviii. 17): it commemorated a transaction subsequent to the Passover, subsequent to their coming out of Egypt; a transac