day, and admitting of an insensible removal from their position, by changes in the revolutions of the heavenly bodies. The alteration is in such a case slight, and the relative order of things is kept up. Many learned men, therefore, agree in thinking that it is highly improbable, that the day observed as the first Sabbath after the deliverance from Egypt, was precisely the same as the day on which the Almighty rested after the creation of man. They think it more likely that the redemption from bondage was the period whence the new reckoning dated.' Certain it is that the ten commandments are prefaced with a reason drawn from this great benefit-"I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. And, what is more important, at the recapitulation of the law forty years afterwards, the same preface to the decalogue is retained, but the motive enforcing the fourth commandment is no longer drawn from the work of creation, but from that of redemption, as if that were the reason and date of the particular day on which the celebration was renewed. "And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand, and by a stretched-out arm; THEREFORE the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath-day. Not a word is here said about the creation, as when the institution in paradise was cited in the first promulgation on Mount Sinai; but the Sabbath is expressly appointed to commemorate the mighty deliverance from Egypt. It is probable, therefore, that this was the day whence the new computation started. Therefore when the Son of God appeared on earth, and wrought out an eternal redemption, it was natural, it was almost necessary, that the day should be changed from the commemoration of the type to the commemoration of the antitype. The Sabbath thus follows the mightiest benefit in each dis 1 J. Mede, Grotius, Abp. Bramhall, J. Edwards, Dean Milner, Scott, all think the reckoning was lost, and was recommenced at the fall of manna, Exodus xvi. And most of them conceive the new computation began from the day of Egyptian redemption. 3 Deut. v. 15. 2 Exod. xx. 11. pensation. In the patriarchal, CREATION; in the Mosaical, THE TEMPORAL DELIVERANCE FROM EGYPT; in the Christian, THE SPIRITUAL REDEMPTION from sin and death by the death and resurrection of Messiah. The essential point, the proportion of time, is untouched throughout. But let us proceed to observe, 3. That these things being so, the VERY FREEDOM AND UNIVERSALITY OF THE GOSPEL DISPENSATION would lead us to think that the same principle would be carried on, that is, that the precise day of the week on which the Sabbath should be kept, would be less insisted on, and that a rule would be laid down applicable to all nations, in all ages, and in all parts of the world. While men were few, and lived nearly in the same quarter, as before the dispersion of Babel and during the Mosaical economy, it would be easy to keep a pretty exact computation of the succession of time, as soon as the date from which the reckoning was to begin was given or if the date was lost, as it probably was during the bondage of Egypt, as soon as the new æra was once determined on. But consider how different is the nature of the case under the gospel. Here you have not a distinct line of patriarchs, or a favoured nation under a theocracy, but a dispensation designed for the whole race of mankind, whose disciples are multiplied in every quarter of the globe, and live under all meridians, and with every variety of civil government and scientific improvement. An appointed season dependent on a succession of days, and losing its validity, if the day be miscalculated, seems, therefore, not very likely to be established under such a dispensation. Of two navigators sailing round the world in opposite directions, one would lose and the other gain a day in his computation— there would be a variation of two days. Now, which would be the seventh day of the week to each of the navigators? When Pitcairn's Island in the South Seas was visited a few years since by an English ship, our voyagers, on the day when they arrived, which was Saturday, found the islanders observing Sunday; the English ship and the islanders having arrived at the island by sailing from England in opposite directions. Under the gospel, then, we might expect that our duty would be fixed upon a plain and easy computation, that after six days of labour there should succeed one day of rest, without obliging men in all the different regions of the earth and under all circumstances, with reckoning up the course of weeks or the order of days from the beginning, which it would be utterly impossible for them to settle, if it were material. How admirably the wisdom of God has provided for this in the arrangement and wording of the law of the Sabbath from the first, I need not observe. Nor is it necessary to remark how naturally the change of the Jewish day of observance, to the Christian, would fall in with this design, and expedite the practical execution of it. I think one would allow these remarks to be almost enough for the point in hand. Suppose any should say, the day of celebrating the sacred rest of religion has been changed under the gospel to honour our Lord's accomplishment of redemption, and has been so kept, as nearly as possible, by the whole church of Christ from the very age of the apostles; the essential law of the Sabbath, the proportion of time, being always preserved inviolate-I should conceive such a statement would be satisfactory. Nor do I think any thing would have been objected to such a statement if the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath had not been assumed to be the same with the seventh-day Sabbath in paradise. This confuses the subject. It seems to make the seventh day a fundamental matter; whilst the real substance of the institution, the measure of working and resting days, is forgotten. Doubtless, also, those who had first feigned an anticipated history, and then banished the Sabbath from the moral law, and lastly, accused our Saviour of repealing that command, have been ready enough to seize on the merely nonessential circumstance of the change of the day of celebration, to prop up their falling cause. And thus it has happened that this subordinate, has in truth become a primary, question, from the accidental importance attached to it. But we proceed. 1 4. THE WORD OF PROPHECY, again, seems to afford such intimations as are quite consistent with a change of the day of the Sabbath. This is all we might expect during the prevalence of the Mosaical economy. The "old creation," says the Prophet-the state of things under the law, shall not be remembered, but the "new creation," the state of things under the gospel, shall; ' that is, as we may probably deduce, the Christian church shall have her ministers, solemnities, sabbaths, and holy ordinances, all referring directly to the Messiah; a new dispensation shall be introduced, in which the alteration shall be so great and extensive as to be fitly compared to new heavens and a new earth;" which shall efface the memory of the old. Such is the import of the whole passage: "Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered nor come to mind." " As the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall ALL FLESH come to worship before me, saith the Lord."2 3 وو 66 But a passage predicting the change of the day of celebrating the Sabbath, or, at the least, giving an intimation of it, is found in the 118th Psalm. "The stone which the builders refused is become the head-stone of the corner. This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes. For the stone spoken of is Christ; the passage being six times applied to him in the New Testament. He was rejected of the builders when he was put to death; he was made the head of the corner, when he rose triumphant from the tomb. While Christ lay in the grave, he lay as a stone cast away by the builders; but when raised from the dead, he became the head of the corner. * This was a great and marvellous act. Now the day when this was done, as we are next 1 1 Probably included in the expression in the Epistle to the Hebrews, "The world to come," ii. 5.-So the best Commen tators. 2 Isa. lxv. 17; 3 v. 22, 23. lxvi. 22, 23; and J. Edwards on them. one ? taught, is appointed to be the day of the rejoicing of the church. "This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." To what day does the prophet here refer? On what day did Christ rise from the dead? Was it not on the first day of the week? Was not this the very day of triumph, the glorious day of Messiah's being made the head of the corner? Does the psalmist refer, then, to any other day? Or does he not rather refer to this most distinguished and peculiar To this, no doubt. And what does he say shall be the employment of it under the New Testament? "THIS is the DAY which the Lord hath made; we will REJOICE AND BE GLAD in it." The prediction is more probably thus interpreted, because the celebration of public worship is the topic which introduces it, "Open to us the gates of righteousness; I will go into them, and will praise the Lord: this gate of the Lord, into which the righteous shall enter."2 Here then is an intimation, to say the least, that the Christian day of joy shall fall on the day of the resurrection of Messiahwhich the Lord's day hath done ever since the promulgation of the gospel. We dwell not, however, on this topic. It may or may not have weight. A further one has greater force. 5. In the next and most perfect dispensation of the divine grace-the gospel-such A COMPLETE REvolu TION ACTUALLY TOOK PLACE IN THE WHOLE STATE of the churCH, that it seems not unnatural that so important a branch of religious observances as the Sabbath, should follow the new order of things. This remark gives colour to the intimations of the prophetic word which we have just noted, and falls in entirely with the previous topics, the preparatory circumstances in the terms and arrangements of the law, the probable change of reckoning in the wilderness, and the demands of an universal religion. The Sabbath, in the progress of ages, was continually acquiring new ends by new manifestations of the covenant of redemption; and those |