early and so general an acquaintance with that weekly division of time to which it gave rise. But the very manner in which Moses describes the revival of this institution in the wilderness, implies that it had long been in existence. The account is just such as we should expect on supposition that the Sabbath had been given to the parents of our race, but greatly neglected during the long and grievous bondage of the Israelites in Egypt. The people recollected it well enough to prepare for its return, by gathering on the sixth day a double portion of manna; "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 seethe that ye will seethe; 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, neither was there any worm therein. And Moses said, eat that today; for to-day is a Sabbath unto the Lord; to-day ye shall not find it in the field. Six days shall ye 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 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."* Does this account look like the original institution of the Sabbath? The very first allusion to it is obviously founded on the supposition of its being already known to the children of Israel: "The people shall go out and gather a certain rate of manna every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law." What law? The Sabbath had not yet been mentioned; but the following verse shows that the writer referred to that sacred day. "And it shall come to pass, that on the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in; and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily." Can any one suppose, that God prescribed the duties of the Sabbath before he had appointed it? Nothing more than this had been said to the people respecting it; and yet they anticipated its return, and its sacred duties, by gathering on the sixth day a double portion of manna. The rulers report their conduct to Moses, and he answers them, in a way which tallies exactly with the supposition, that the Sabbath was an old and neglected, but not entirely forgotten institution. He expressly reminds them of its having been previously ap * Exodus xvi. 22-29. + Ibid. xvi. 4. + Ibid. xvi. 5. pointed, this is that which the Lord hath said; and then proceeds to repeat and enforce some of its duties; bake that which ye will bake to-day, and seethe that ye will seethe. The rebuke, how long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws? implies the previous appointment of the Sabbath; and the positive assertion, the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, must settle the question in any mind disposed to understand the sacred historian. How can we account for all these references to the Sabbath? How came the people to anticipate its return? Why does Moses employ the language of a historian, to-morrow is the Sabbath, and not the language of a lawgiver, to-morrow SHALL BE the Sabbath? These brief considerations will be sufficient to satisfy the sincere, implicit believer in the Bible, that the Sabbath was instituted, as Moses expressly imforms us, at the close of the creation, and given to cur first parents as the natural representatives of all their descendants, in paradise. Was it, then, intended for them alone, or for a mere fraction of their distant posterity? Does the record intimate or imply anything like this? Does not every one of the reasons originally assigned for its appointment, apply alike to all mankind? Are not all equally bound to imitate the example of their Maker in resting on the Sabbath, to commemorate the works of his hand, and consecrate one day in seven to his worship? Is there, in considerations like these, anything which restricts their application to Adam and the Israelites? It is impossible to evade this argument by saying, that the Sabbath was particularly enjoined on the Jews. Very true; and so were all the other precepts of the moral law. But because the Jews were expressly required to abstain from theft and murder, are we permitted to commit these crimes? Had nine precepts of the decalogue, like the law of the Sabbath, been expressly enjoined on Adam, but so grossly neglected by his posterity, or deemed of such paramount importance, that God saw fit to renew them on Mount Sinai, and enforce them on his chosen people by the most powerful sanctions; would this circumstance have left all the rest of mankind at liberty to trample on those precepts with impunity? No; such a repetition would obviously have enforced them still more strongly on every descend.. ant of Adam; and the fact that the Sabbath was thus solemnly enjoined anew on the Israelites, so far from relaxing or restricting its claims, lays the whole human family under increased obligations to observe it. II. Another argument, then, for the moral obligation of the Sabbath, may be drawn from the fact of its having been incor porated with the Decalogue. Amid the glories of Sinai, God spake as the lawgiver, not of the Jews merely, but if the whole human race; and there gave, in the Ten Commandments, a brief yet lucid summary of duties which all men, in every age and country, owe to him and to one another. But the same voice which there proclaimed, Thou shalt have no other gods before me;-thou shalt not steal ;—thou shalt not kill ;—thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor;-that very voice uttered at the same time the command, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do ALL thy work; but the seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt not do ANY work; thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven, and earth, and sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day. Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day, and hallowed it." It is readily admitted that nine precepts of the decalogue are obligatory on all mankind; and what voice of authority has told us that the other is not equally binding? God enshrined the fourth command among the other imperishable, unchanging principles of his moral law; and who has authorized us to erase it from those tables of stone on which he himself inscribed it? Shall we venture thus to tamper with the statutes of Jehovah? It is in vain to think of resisting this argument, by the supposition that the Sabbath was a part of the Mosaic ritual. It existed before that ritual; it was proclaimed by God himself from the summit of burning Sinai; it was graven with his own finger on tables of stone, along with the other precepts of the decalogue; it was incorporated, not with a perishable ritual, but with that moral law whose principles are all binding alike on every son and daughter of Adam. Did Christ come to destroy that law? No; he came, as he expressly informs us, not to repeal it, but to enforce it by all the sanctions of his own gospel.* Nor can we set aside the Sabbath by calling it a positive institution. What if it be so? Has not the Almighty Lawgiver authority sufficient to enforce whatever he may see fit to enjoin? Because the command to abstain from the tree of knowledge was merely a positive one, could our first parents disobey it with impunity? Let the miseries of a world, for time and eternity, answer. What creates or determines our duty in any case? The simple will of God, in whatever way expressed,-whether revealed in his word, inferred from his works, or written on the heart * Matt. v. 17, 18. and conscience. The fourth command, then, even if it were altogether of a positive nature, would be as really binding on mankind as any other part of the decalogue.. But is the Sabbath in all respects a positive institution? True, the day of its observance, a point not essential to the institution itself, is necessarily a matter of positive injunction; but are not all its other features stamped with a moral impress? Do they not exhibit all the characteristics of a moral precept? What gives such a precept its moral nature? Its origin, its duties, its purposes, its reasons? Then is the Sabbath of a moral nature; for its origin is the bosom of Jehovah; its main duties are moral; its grand purposes are spiritual; and all its reasons are applicable alike to mankind in every age and clime. It is still more irrelevant to say, that violations of the Sabbath were punished by the Jews with peculiar rigor.* What if the Sabbath breaker was put to death? So was the adulterer ;† so was the disobedient child; so was the worshipper of idols. But are we at liberty to trample the whole decalogue under our feet, simply because the government under which we live does. not punish the violation of its precepts with the same severity that the civil law of the Jews did? May we indulge in idolatry and covetousness, or commit perjury and murder? What has the Sabbath, instituted in paradise, and renewed amid the glories of Sinai, to do with the civil policy of the Jews? Its incidental and temporary connexion with their penal code did not affect its nature or obligations, as a part of that moral law which God intended for all mankind; and unless he repeals the fourth commandment himself, one jot or tittle of it can never fail of being obligatory on every descendant of Adam. III. These arguments, drawn from the original institution of the Sabbath, and its subsequent renewal, are both confirmed by the manner in which it is treated throughout the Bible. It is enjoined almost if not quite as frequently as any other precept of the decalogue. "Ye shall keep the Sabbath; for it is holy unto you. Six days may work be done ;"-a simple permission, not a command, to work six days in seven-"but in the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations for a perpetual covenant." "Six days shall work be done; but on the seventh day there shall be to you a holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the Lord." We need not mul * Exodus xxxi. 14, 15. xxxv. . 2, etc. Lev. xx. 9. Deut. xxi 18-21. † Lev. xx. 10, 11. § Deut. xiii. 6-11. xvii. 2-7. Exodus xxxi. 14, 16, xxxv. 2. xxiii. 12. Lev. xxiii. 3. Deut. v. 14. Jer. xvii. 20—26, tiply quotations. Our readers, if they should examine the Scriptures on this point, would probably be surprised to find with what frequency and earnestness the Sabbath is enjoined. Mark also the promises annexed to a proper observance of this sacred day. "Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it; that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil. For thus saith the Lord unto the eunuchs that keep my Sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant; even unto them will I give in mine house, and within my walls, a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. Also the sons of the stranger that join themselves to the Lord to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants; every one that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant; even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in mine house of prayer." "If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable, and shall honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words; then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob." Should we expect that obedience to a merely ceremonial law would have been enforced by the promise of such rewards? But observe the threatenings denounced against the Sabbath breaker. "Every one that defileth the Sabbath shall surely be put to death." "Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden. on the Sabbath-day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem, neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day, neither do ye any work; but hallow ye the Sabbath-day, as I commanded your fathers. But if ye will not hearken unto me, and hallow the Sabbath-day, then will I kindle a fire in the gates of Jerusalem, and it shall devour the palaces thereof, and it shall not be quenched." Remember also with what judgements the great Lawgiver of the Sabbath actually punished its violations. "Because the priests have violated my law, and hid their eyes from my Sabbaths, therefore have I poured out mine indignation upon them; I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath." "What evil thing," said the fearless Nehemiah to the nobles of Ju |