circumcision, on account of which they were sometimes reproached, did not distinguish them from other nations, like the custom in question: for circumcision was practised by other nations, as well as by them. It was also a rite performed with comparative secrecy; it occupied only a few moments, and occurred only once in a person's life. But the sanctification of the sabbath occupied a whole day every week, and that in the most public manner. No one could tell a Jew from another by any external appearance that circumcision gave him among men; but all around him could not possibly avoid knowing what he was by his attention to the peculiarities of the weekly sabbath. The Gentiles must converse with him to know his principles, or go into the temple or the synagogue where he worshipped, to learn the nature of the public service he performed there but to become acquainted with the distinction made by the sabbath between them and him, they had only to open their eyes, and view his proceedings, and his abstinences for a whole day together, every time that particular day returned, which was with every new week.

The Jews, therefore, were indeed distinguished from all other nations, by the extraordinary manner in which the knowledge (Neh. 9. 14.) of the seventh day sabbath, as well as of the rest of the Decalogue, was communicated to them, and by

the spiritual blessings bestowed on it, which were chiefly experienced among them-by their universal and continued observance of it-and particularly by their devoting the whole day to religion. But these singularities do not prove that the other nations had no concern with the seventh day sabbath, any more than their not knowing the true God, or their not possessing the Old Testament by means of written revelation, or God's not having made known his judgments and statutes (even those contained in the moral law) supernaturally to them, (by all which the Jews were also separated from them, as well as by the sabbath,) prove that they had no concern with, nor were called upon to regard any one of them.

Such are the reasons that induce me to think the arguments brought to establish the exclusive obligation of the Jews to keep the seventh day holy insufficient, and unable to invalidate the contrary inference of its extending to the Gentiles, drawn from the evidence of the day observed by the Jews being the same in rotation with that on which God rested, and which he in consequence appointed to be the weekly sabbath.

. From this coincidence it follows, that the seventh day sabbath is still obligatory upon mankind, except it be repealed...

A positive institution differs from a moral one in durableness of obligation only in this, that it is repealable, whereas the other is not. But the regard due to the former is as firm as that which is due to the latter, till it be repealed. That a repeal has actually taken place, may sometimes be known without a formal notice. This was the case of the Mosaic ritual, and of sacrifices. These were not only positive laws, but ceremonial. They were typical of Christ; and therefore when the work and sufferings of the Great Antitype were accomplished, they would of course have ceased to be valid, even if no information had been given in the New Testament to that effect. But every positive law is not typical, nor does every one contain circumstances in it or about it, which show that it is intended to cease being in force after a certain period; and when it does not, its repeal cannot take place, without a formal notice to that purpose from the same authority that instituted it. This is the case of the seventh day sabbath. There is nothing in the law itself, as recorded in Genesis 2. or Exodus 20. that limits its duration to a given time, except it be, that it is the memorial of something temporary, namely, of the Creation. The law must, therefore, last as long as the world stands, except notice be given to the contrary; and this notice will (as was said before) with the seventh day

abolish the seventh part of time, which owes its obligatory power solely to the former, and will consequently need a new institution in order to recover it.

I cannot but observe, in conclusion, that the common expression. 'Jewish sabbath,' if indicative of the seventh day sabbath belonging to the Jews exclusively, can only be proper in the event of a repeal having taken place with regard to the Gentiles, that confines the obligation of keeping it holy to the Jews: for it appears, from what has been said, that prior to such a repeal, the sanctification of it was no more obligatory upon them, than it was upon all other nations.

CHAPTER VI.

Differences of Opinion concerning the supposed Repeal of the Seventh Day Weekly Sabbath.

WERE the sanctification of the seventh or last day of the week moral in the proper sense of the term, as a dictate of reason, and discoverable by the light of nature, it would not be repealable. For though an act usually moral may be dispensed with, or one of the contrary description be authorized or commanded occasionally by the Au

thor and Preserver of those relationships on which morality depends, to answer some highly important purpose of which He alone can be the judge, (as the second marriage after the Creation-the attempted offering up of Isaac-and the connexions formed by the prophet Hosea with different females,) yet it does not appear that these deviations could take place for a continuance, or that a moral disposition could be dispensed with in any instance whatsoever. But the law enacted in Paradise respecting the seventh day weekly sabbath has been shown (as the seventh part of time, had that been sanctified abstractedly, would have been) to be a positive institution, and moral only on account of certain extraordinary circumstances in which it resembles a moral precept; it is therefore liable to a repeal.

It is proper, however, to observe, that there are several considerations which render it not a little improbable that it would be repealed. The Creation, the completion of which was the occasion of its institution, will last till the end of time. The institution celebrates a work interesting no less to every other nation, than to the Jews; to people living under the Christian dispensation, than to those who lived under the Patriarchal and Jewish dispensations. It is a work most magnificent, extensive, and perfect, as originally

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