till the time of Moses, it doubtless was kept holy, so long as a sense of true religion remained; as after Moses, the history of the next 500 years is equally silent on its observance, though the command had been so strict, and so often repeated, to observe it.

In the days of Moses, the Sabbath, like all other service of the true God, had been neglected, and lost. As the period of men's existence became more distant from the creation, sin confirmed its hold, and multiplied its ramifications; the true worship was corrupted; and idolatry prevailed in almost all the world. With the worship, the day of worship also was forgotten. It may have been revived after the flood, and continued partially with Abraham and his family. But in the Egyptian bondage of the Israelites it was again utterly abolished. Hence the command given to Moses for its renewal. Hence the new commandment was required, more precise and stringent, to guard the people, if it were possible, from

that retrograde debasement and forgetfulness of God, into which their forefathers had fallen. In like manner, the worship of the true God was again enjoined, though Adam, and Abel, and Enoch, and Noah, and Abraham, had worshipped him long before. In like manner murder was again forbidden, though it had been solemnly denounced after the flood, and the curse upon Cain, the first murderer, had been greater than he was able to bear.

Thus then the Sabbath was again appointed with the same object as before; to remind them of that great fundamental article of all religion, that all things are of, and sustained, and governed by the one true God. "Thou shalt keep holy the Sabbath Day: 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." God rested on the seventh day from his work of Creation; and therefore the children of Israel were to rest from all work. Not

indeed that God was fatigued and tired as a man is: "The Creator of the ends of the earth fainteth not, neither is weary" but that "it might be a sign between the Lord, and the children of Israel for ever."2

Again, God declared himself to the children of Israel, by the title of, "the Lord, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage:" and this signal mercy of their deliverance from slavery was to the Israelites a distinctive mark of the true God. Therefore, when they had pased the Red Sea, and the host of Pharaoh was overthrown, and manna was given them in the wilderness of Sin, before they came to Sinai, or received the commandments, the Sabbath is spoken of, as what had been known before, but lost, and now re-ordained: "This is that which the Lord hath said, To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath to the Lord:" and the

1 Isaiah, xl. 28. 2 Ex. xxxi. 13, 17. 3 Ex. xvi. 23.

manna given for five days would not keep till the morrow; but that given on the sixth day did keep, and they gathered twice as much, and it did not stink, neither was any worm therein, that the seventh day might be a day of rest, a Sabbath to the Lord, in memory of the deliverance he had wrought for them. "Remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord brought thee out thence: therefore he commanded thee to keep the Sabbath Day." He commanded them to keep it as an apt memorial of the rest he had bestowed, after the hard toils and afflictions of that slavery without a Sabbath, from which he had brought them forth.

The Jewish Sabbath, whether or not the day on which the Creation was completed, was that on which their deliverance from Egyptian slavery was fully accom

1 Deut. v. 15

2 See Paley's "Moral Philosophy," book v. c. 7. for a different view of the institution of the Sabbath, and the arguments by which it may be supported.

plished by the destruction of Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea. That bondage of the Israelites, and their liberation, is the type of our bondage to, and redemption from, sin and death. In common with the Jews then, we keep a seventh day of rest in remembrance of the Creator, not pretending to determine on what day of the present week the Creation was completed, or which was the first, or which the sixth of the existence of the world. But as they keep the day on which their deliverance was completed, so we keep that on which our Redemption was fully accomplished by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. St. Paul speaks of the Jewish Sabbaths, as a shadow of things to come; and therefore to cease with the body, or reality, which is Christ. Hence on the first day of the week the disciples came together to break bread (to receive the Lord's Supper, that is,) and "Paul preached to them."2

1 Coloss. ii. 16.

2 Acts, xx. 7.