God. A memorial, holding forth such a testimony in its observance, was, in its very nature, a distinctive sign or badge of the worshippers of Jehovah. They could not keep it without thereby marking themselves as worshippers of him, and not of idols. They could not neglect or refuse to keep it without losing their distinctive badge, and becoming so far identified with idolaters. It was preeminently the badge of their religious faith. To observe it, was to profess faith in Jehovah as the only true God. Not to observe it, was to say, Jehovah is not the only true God, and was tantamount to apostasy or idolatry; and as that government was a theocracy, such apostasy or idolatry was virtual high-treason. No wonder, then, that God selected this as the sign, rather than some other ordinance, and then placed such an estimate upon it, and dealt out such a penalty upon its violation. The Sabbath was fitted, in its nature, to be such a sign or badge. As such, the obligation to observe it was only another form of the obligation to have no other gods before Jehovah, and was therefore equally sacred, and its violation equally criminal.

In this view of the case, all is plain. Every thing is just what we should expect. For every thing there is a reason, good and sufficient; while, on the supposition that the Sabbath was originally given as a memorial of deliverance from Egypt, and yet selected as the sign in question, all is arbitrary, without reason, significancy, or aim. Moreover, in this view, too, we see at once why the Sabbath, with its connected privileges and rights, was to the idolatrous Egyptians the most obnoxious of all the Hebrew peculiarities, and therefore among the first of those peculiarities to be

taken 'Sway, and the last to be restored. It, with its privileges and rights, was their great distinctive badge as the worshippers of Jehovah. Its observance was therefore their weekly, national testimony against the gods of Egypt. No wonder their oppressors took it away. And when God came down to deliver, no wonder that, as a means to its end, or as involving the question of their religious and civil freedom, this became the great question at issue.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE ARGUMENT RECAPITULATED AND CLOSED.

SUPPOSE We now briefly review the ground over which we have passed. We have shown that in the first mention of the Sabbath, (Gen. ii. 2, 3,) there is every thing to prove that it was instituted at creation, the time specified, and was as truly one of the great permanent arrangements established for the race, as was the marriage institution, or any of the other arrangements then first brought into being. We have shown that the argument from geology is without force; that from Adam to Moses, there is every allusion to, and mention of, its existence and observance, which, in such and so short a history, ought to be expected; that in the deliverance from Egypt, considered as a means to its appropriate end, it, with its connected privileges and rights, was the great question at issue, and the very reason of the deliverance; that it was not originally given as a memorial of that deliverance, nor in the wilderness; that the fact of God's not having made the same covenant with the fathers, as with those he brought out of Egypt, no more proves that the fathers had not the Sabbath, with the law of its observance, than that they were without every other command of the decalogue; and, finally, that the observance of the Sabbath, as a standing ordinance, became a sign between Jehovah and

the Hebrews only by virtue of its connection with creation, as a memorial of that event; and, therefore, that the fact of its being such a sign only proves it to have existed from the first, and to have come down, from age to age, as, every where and at all times, the same great distinctive badge of the worshippers of Jehovah. In prosecuting the argument, I remark,

2. The Sabbath is spoken of in the decalogue as an institution previously existing, and is there, as well as in the prophets, incorporated with other laws admitted to be of original and ceaseless obligation. Without expanding the argument, I observe, (1.) It is the only law of the ten, that is claimed to be merely Jewish. (2.) It is a part of that code which the Savior declared (Matt.. v. 17, 18) should never pass away. (3.) It is coupled often (e. g. Is. lviii.) with the doing of justice and judgment, and letting the oppressed go free-duties which all admit to be of unchanging and ceaseless obligation. (4.) The term "Remember" is indicative of its preëxistence. But, without laying stress upon the mere phraseology, if the law, "Thou shalt not steal," was evidence of preexisting rights of property, and not of the original institution of those rights; if the law, “Thou shalt not commit adultery," argued with equal clearness a preexisting marriage institution, with its conjugal and filial relations, and not their original establishment; and so of the other laws of the decalogue, if their grand object was, as is admitted, not to institute their respective rights and institutions as new, but only to guard them as old and permanent ones, why must not the same be true of the law of the Sabbath?

3. Ancient testimony confirms the doctrine of the

institution of the Sabbath at creation. Writers, some of whom lived more than a thousand years before the Christian era, speak of the division of time into weeks, and of the special observance of the seventh day of the week, as a season for diversions or the offering of sacrifices to their gods, as facts existing among various heathen nations. The following is a specimen of their testimony:—

Homer says, "Afterwards came the seventh, the sacred day."

Hesiod says, "The seventh day is holy."

Callimachus speaks of the seventh day as holy.

Lucian says, “The seventh day is given to school-boys as a holiday."

Porphyry says, "The Phenicians consecrated one day in seven as holy."

Josephus says, "There is no city, either of Greeks or barbarians, or any other nation, where the religion of the Sabbath is not known."

Grotius says, "That the memory of the creation being performed in seven days, was preserved not only among the Greeks and Italians, but among the Celts and Indians, all of whom divided their time into weeks."

Eusebius says, "Almost all the philosophers and poets acknowledge the seventh day as holy."

Similar testimonies might be added, showing that a division of time into weeks obtained also among the Assyrians, Egyptians, Romans, Gauls, Britons, and Germans. Now, situated as many of these nations were in respect to the Jews, and prevailing as the customs in question did at so early a period among them, it is manifest that they could not have been derived from