ent, both for the external offices of Christianity, and the retired, but equally neceffary duties of religious meditation and inquiry. It is true, that many do not convert their leifure to this purpofe; but it is of moment, and is all which a public conftitution can effect, that to every one be allowed the opportunity.

3. They whofe humanity embraces the whole fenfitive creation will efteem it no inconfiderable recommendation of a weekly return of public rest, that it affords a reípite to the toil of brutes. Nor can we omit to recount this amongst the ufes, which the divine founder of the Jewish fabbath expressly appointed a law of the inftitu

tion.

We admit, that none of these reasons show why Sunday should be preferred to any other day in the week, or one day in seven to one day in fix or eight: but these points, which in their nature are of arbitrary determination, being eftablished to our hands, our obligation applies to the fubfifting establishment, fo long as we confefs, that fome fuch inftitution is neceffary, and are neither able, nor attempt to fubftitute any other in its place.

CHAP. VII.

OF THE SCRIPTURE ACCOUNT OF SABBATICAL INSTITUTIONS.

T

HE fubject, so far as it makes any part of
Christian morality, is contained in two

queftions:

I. Whether the command, by which the Jewif fabbath was inftituted, extend to Chriftians?

II. Whether any new command was delivered by Chrift; or any other day fubftituted in the place of the Jewish fabbath by the authority or example of his Apoftles?

In treating of the first question, it will be neceffary to collect the accounts, which are preserved of the inftitution in the Jewish history; for the feeing thefe accounts together, and in one point of view, will be the best preparation for the difcuffing or judging of any arguments on one fide or the other.

In the fecond chapter of Genefis, the hiftorian having concluded his account of the fix days creation, proceeds thus: "And on the feventh "day God ended his work which he had made;

"and

❝ and he rested on the seventh day from all his "work which he had made: and God blessed the “seventh day, and fanctified it, because that in "it he had refted from all his work which God "created and made." After this, we hear no more of the fabbath, or of the seventh day, as in any manner distinguished from the other fix, until the history brings us down to the fojourning of the Jews in the wilderness, when the following remarkable paffage occurs. Upon the complaint of the people for want of food, God was pleased to provide for their relief by a miraculous fupply of manna, which was found every morning upon the ground about the "and "they gathered it every morning, every man "according to his eating; and when the fun ❝ waxed hot, it melted: and it came to pass, "that on the fixth day they gathered twice as "much bread, two omers for one man; and all "the rulers of the congregation came and told Mofes; and he faid unto them, this is that "which the Lord hath faid, to-morrow is the reft of the holy fabbath unto the Lord; bake that $ which ye will bake to day, and seeth that "will feeth, and that which remaineth over lay for you, to be kept until the morning; " and they laid it up till the morning, as Mofes

66

up

camp;

ye

"bade,

"bade, and it did not ftink (as it had done before, when fome of them left it till the morning), "neither was there any worm therein. And "Mofes faid, Eat that to day; for to day is a fab"bath unto the Lord: to day ye shall not find it "in the field. Six days ye fhall gather it, but

on the seventh day, which is the fabbath, in it "there fhall be none. And it came to pass, that "there went out some of the people on the se"venth day for to gather, and they found none. "And the Lord faid unto Mofes, how long re"fuse ye to keep my commandments and my "laws? See, for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the fixth "day the bread of two days; abide ye every

man in his place; let no man go out of his place on the feventh day: fo the people rested on the seventh day.” Exodus xvi.

Not long after this, the fabbath, as is well known, was established with great folemnity in the fourth commandment.

Now, in my opinion, the tranfaction in the wilderness, above recited, was the first actual inftitution of the fabbath. For, if the fabbath had been inftituted at the time of the creation, as the words in Genefis may feem at first fight to import, and if it had been obferved all along,

from that time to the departure of the Jews out of Egypt, a period of about two thousand five hundred it years, appears unaccountable, that no mention of it, no occafion of even the obscureft allufion to it, fhould occur either in the general history of the world before the call of Abraham, which contains, we admit, only a few memoirs of its early ages, and those extremely abridged; or, which is more to be wondered at, in that of the lives of the three firft Jewish patriarchs, which, in many parts of the account, is fufficiently circumftantial and domeftic. Nor is there, in the paffage above quoted from the fixteenth chapter of Exodus, any intimation that the fabbath, then appointed to be obferved, was only the revival of an ancient institution, which had been neglected, forgotten, or suspended; nor is any fuch neglect imputed either to the inhabitants of the old world, or to any part of the family of Noah; nor, laftly, is any permiffion recorded to dispense with the institution during the captivity of the Jews in Egypt, or on any other public emergency.

The paffage in the fecond chapter of Genefis, which creates the whole controversy upon the fubject, is not inconfiftent with this opinion; for as the feventh day was erected into a fabbath,

on