that distinction which is to be made between the two ordinances, as well as the situation of the Jews themselves. They were to keep the seventh day holy, as it were, under a double injunction. As a portion of mankind they were to hold it sanctified in memory of God's resting from his work, and in obedience to his primæval command: as God's peculiar people they were to keep it as a Sabbath, or sign, by which they recognized his mercy in their temporal deliverance, and his covenant to grant them a future and more excellent rest. That this idea was also entertained by the best informed of the Jews themselves, we may gather from the writings of Philo and Josephus, who sometimes refer the sanctification of a seventh day to the creation of the world, and at other times confine it to the Jewish ordinance. I cannot therefore but dissent from those persons, who, in advocating the same side of the question with myself, endeavour to account for the Sabbatical sign by analogies drawn from the rainbow, or from the rites of circumcision and family marriages, the first of which existed as a natural phenomenon, and the two last as rites, before they were converted into signs and covenants. The case of the Sabbath is not at all analogous to the one, nor strictly so to the others; for these received no change or addition, like it; and the comparison serves perhaps to confound the Jewish

ordinance with the original patriarchal institution, instead of preserving that peculiar definition of the Sabbath, which is necessary for our argument. So far indeed the two last-mentioned cases may be usefully introduced, as they shew that all the ordinances of the Mosaical Law were not new ones. These rites existed long before the giving of the Law, and were by Moses adopted into it. The Sabbath also was adopted by him, but it was also adapted to the peculiar circumstances of his nation.

SECT. III.

I Now come to the third Proposition, which is generally considered to contain the greatest difficulties the principal part of these however will be removed, as I think, by placing the original ordinance of a seventh day's sanctification upon a firm and sure foundation. If this ordinance be coeval with the creation of the world, addressed to, and obligatory upon, all mankind, its relation to all mankind cannot be altered either when it is adopted into the Levitical Code under certain modifications, or when those modifications are afterwards abrogated. To do away with the universality of the original command, you must shew where it has been repealed: but this is by no

means shewn when you cite St. Paul as reckoning the Sabbath days amongst the other ceremonial ordinances abolished by Christ. When the Apostle speaks thus, he means only that which was ceremonial or political, and therefore strictly Jewish, in the institution; all that related to their delivery from Egyptian bondage, and to their separation from the rest of mankind, by the Ceremonial Law of Moses. That Law was strictly one of separation. The Gospel, on the contrary, is a comprehensive scheme which opens the arms of God's mercy to the Jew and the Gentile alike, if they obey its laws. It becomes us therefore to consider the nature of these laws.

The laws of the Gospel then are (1), those which it promulgates as peculiarly its own; (2), those which it adopts from the original moral laws or positive ordinances of the Creator. Now it may be said that all of these latter are recognized by the Gospel, even in its silence respecting them; yet whenever doubts are raised concerning the actual existence of an ordinance in the Old Testament, it is very satisfactory to find those doubts removed by the special adoption of that ordinance in the New Testament. Apply this to the case in question. I assert that God originally sanctified the seventh day, or set it apart to be kept holy by all to whom the knowledge of his word should come, in memory of his sacred rest. You deny this

position, and assert that the institution of the Sabbath in the wilderness, was the first separation of a seventh day, to be kept holy by the Israelites only, as a sign between them and their Deliverer. In the mean time both of us acknowledge that the Ceremonial Law was but a shadow of good things to come, and that its ordinances, amongst which the Sabbath is reckoned, were abolished by the manifestation of the Messiah. This being the case, if it be shewn that the custom of keeping holy a seventh day was continued without any interruption under the Christian Dispensation and sanctioned by its highest authority, is it not at the same time proved that the original institution was revived, or rather continued in the spirit of the Gospel? The rite is evidently not the Jewish one, for that was declared to be abolished; neither is it entirely a Christian one, or else it would have been so specified either by Christ or his disciples. But that it was adopted into the Christian scheme there is abundant evidence. the very day that our Saviour rose from the grave, his Disciples were met together, and Jesus appeared in the midst of them. On the same day in the following week, i. e. the first, (or after eight days, as it is expressed in the Gospel) they were also met together in conclave, when Jesus took that opportunity of again appearing to them and convincing Thomas of his personal identity,

On

After his ascension, on the same day of the week, the Holy Ghost descended visibly upon them and endowed them with the miraculous gift of tongues. That the custom of assembling together on this day continued thenceforth in the Church, we have the testimony of St. Paul; who, in the 16th chapter of his Epistle to the Corinthians, advises each person to bring in his offering or alms on the first day of the week we have also that of St. Luke in the Acts of the Apostles (chap. xx. 6.) who confirms the opinion that it was customary to meet on that day for the purpose of religious worship, for expounding the Scriptures, and for breaking of bread, i. e. partaking of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. That the custom continued in full vigour throughout the Apostolic age, we feel assured by the remarkable expression of St. John, who, in his book of Revelations, calls this day the Lord's Day, from the notoriety of its ordinance, and the veneration in which it was held. That the same was religiously kept up in succeeding generations we have a host of witnesses, whose testimonies, as they have been collected by many writers, need not be repeated here it will be sufficient to state that Justin Martyr, who flourished in the third century, declares that on this day, which was then called Sunday (τῇ τοῦ ἡλίου λεγομένῃ ἡμέρᾳ) all Christians used to assemble together from town and