3. When this sign, covenant, and type was actually abolished by the manifestation of Christ in the flesh, the primæval 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 labour; whilst no other reason is, or can be assigned for the labour and rest of that Almighty Being, who could in a moment have called the universe into existence, but a design of securing the allegiance of his newly created subjects, by giving them both a motive and a precedent for resting from their labours, that they might meditate upon 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 honoured 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

• Serm. xii. Vol. IV. p. 271.

world.' He also denominates it τοῦ κόσμου γε véolov, "the birth-day of the world."

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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: these however, are quite sufficient to shew that it was both ordained and observed: yet when human nature is considered, we can scarcely conceive how an observance 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.

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With regard to the Almighty's permitting 'mankind to remain for so long a period with

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only a partial knowledge, 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 favour of God to be