mystery, which is beautifully expressed by Moses and Ezekiel. In Exodus we read as

follows: "Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you. Ye shall keep the Sabbath, therefore; for it is holy unto you. The children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever." 1 This is more fully expressed by Ezekiel; but the substance of what he says, is, that the Sabbath was a sign, from which the Israelites might know that God was their sanctifier.2 If our sanctification consist properly in a mortification of our will, there is a very natural analogy between the external sign, and the internal thing which it represents. We must rest altogether, that God may operate within us; we must recede from our own will, resign our own heart, and renounce our carnal affections; in short, we must cease from all the efforts of our own understandings, that having God operating within us, we may enjoy rest in him, as we are also taught by the apostle.3

All that is of a ceremonial nature was, without doubt, abolished by the advent of the Lord Christ. For He is the Truth, at whose presence all figures disappear; the Body, on the prospect of which all the shadows are 1 Exod xxxi. 13, 17. 2 Ezek. xx. 12.

3 Heb v 9.

relinquished. He, I say, is the true fulfilment of the Sabbath. Having been "buried with him by baptism, we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, that being partakers of his resurrection, we may walk in newness of life."1 Therefore the apostle says in another place, that "the Sabbath was a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ: "2 that is the real substance of the truth, which he has beautifully explained in that passage. This is contained not in one day, but in the whole course of our life, till, being wholly dead to ourselves, we be filled with the life of God. Christians, therefore, ought to depart from all superstitious observance of days.

I do not lay so much stress on the septenary number, that I would oblige the church to an invariable adherence to it; nor will I condemn those churches which have other solemn days for their assemblies, provided they keep at a distance from superstition. And this will be the case, if they be only designed for the observance of discipline and well regulated order.

As the truth was delivered to the Jews under a figure, so it is given to us without any shadows; first, in order that during our whole life we should meditate on a perpetual rest from our own works, that the Lord may operate within us by his Spirit; secondly, that every man, whenever he has leisure, should diligently exercise himself in private,

1 Rom. vi. 4, &c. 2 Col. ii. 16, 17.

in pious reflections on the works of God; and also that we should, at the same time, observe the legitimate order of the church; thirdly, that we should not unkindly oppress those who are subject to us. Thus vanish all the dreams of false prophets, who in past ages have infected the people with a Jewish notion, affirming that nothing but the ceremonial part of this commandment, which according to them is the appointment of the seventh day, has been abrogated; but that the moral part of it, that is the observance of one day in seven, still remains. But this is only changing the day in contempt of the Jews, while they retain the same opinion of the holiness of a day; for on this principle, the same mysterious signification would still be attributed to particular days, which they formerly obtained among the Jews. indeed we see what advantages have arisen from such a sentiment. For those who adhere to it, far exceed the Jews in a gross, carnal, and superstitious observance of the Sabbath; so that the reproofs, which we find in Isaiah, are equally as applicable to them in the present age, as to those whom the prophet reproved in his time. But the principal thing to be remembered is, the general doctrine, that, lest religion decay or languish amongst us, sacred assemblies ought diligently to be held; and that we ought to use those external means which are adapted to support the worship of God.

And

EXTRACTS

FROM A

DISCOURSE ON THE SABBATH, Delivered at Oxford, Anno 1622, by Dr. PRIDEAUX.

THE Weekly Sabbath mentioned in the decalogue, being it is become to many a rock of offence, it will not, haply, be unwelcome to the wavering mind, so to determine of the point, that they may have something whereupon to fasten. There is not any thing now more frequent in some zealots' mouths, than that the Lord's-day is with us licentiously profaned; the fourth commandment produced and expounded literally, as if it did as much oblige us Christians, as it did once the Jews. And to this purpose, all such texts of the Old Testament which seem to press the rigorous keeping of that day, are alleged at once; and thereupon some men are most superstitiously persuaded, neither to kindle a fire in the winter time wherewith to warm themselves, or to dress meat for the sustentation of the poor;—which trench not more upon the bounds of Christian liberty, than they do break the bonds of Christian charity.

The institution of the Sabbath is generally refered to God, by all who are instructed by the word of God, that he created all things, and hath since governed the same. But touching the original of this institution, and

promulgation of the same, it is not agreed upon amongst the learned. Some fetch the original thereof from the beginning of the world, when God first "blessed the seventh day and sanctified it;" whence well this question may be raised :—whether before the publishing of Moses' law, the Sabbath was to be observed by the law of nature? They which are commonly more apt to say any thing, than able afterwards to prove it, maintain affirmatively that it was: -"for," say they, "Is it not all one, to bless and sanctify "the seventh day in the beginning of the world, as to impose it then on the posterity "of Adam to be blessed and sanctified? If "all the rest of the commandments flow from "the principles of nature, how is this ex"cluded? Can we conceive that this only "ceremonial law crept in, we know not how, amongst the morals? Or that the prophet

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"Moses would have used such care in order"ing the decalogue, only to bring the church "into greater troubles?" Add hereunto, that Torniellus thinks it hardly credible that Enoch should apart himself from the sons of Cain to call upon the name of the Lord, without some certain and appointed time for that performance. "Tell me," (say they) "who can,

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wherefore, before the publication of the law "of Moses, there fell no manna on the "seventh day? Had not the Sabbath, according to God's first example, been kept continually from the foundation of the "world?" These are indeed such arguments

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