PHI LOS 0 P H Y . - Classic Works of Apologetics Online

·the LlJrd h;J.fh gi1Jen you tht :labbatl , ~trerefore he giveth
JOu on the sixth day the bread of two days ; abide
ye every man in his place; let no man go out of his
place on the seventh day: so the people rested on
the seventh day." Exodul J.. vi.
Not long after this, the ~bl::tth, as is well known,
was established with great :;olemnity in the fourth
commandment. .
Now, in my opinion, the trcm~action in the wilderness,
above recited, was the first actual institution of
the sabbath. For, if the s1bb~lth had been instituted
~t the time 'Jf the creation, as the words in Genesis
may seem at first sight tQ import, and if it had been
observed all along, frCt>~ that time to the departure
of the ! ews out of E.gypt, a period of about two
thou~nd five hundretl years, it appears unaccountable,
tl-Jat no mention of it, no occasion of even the obscurest
allusion to it, should occur either in the general
history of the world before the call of Abraham,
wmch €:ontains, we admit, only a few memoif's of its
early ages, and those extremely abridged ; or, which
is Inore to be wondered at, in that of the iives of the
three first lewi~h patrialchs~ which, in many parts cJ
the account, is sufficiently circumstantial and domeSe
tic. Nor is there, in the pa~sage above quoted from.
the sixteenth chapter of Exodus, any intimation that
the ~abbath, then appointed to be observed, was only
the revival of an ancient institution, which bad been
neglected, forg')tten, or su pended; nor is any such
neglect in1puted either to the inhabitants of the old
world, or to any part of the family of Noah; nor,
lastly, is any permis!-.ion rt corded to dispense with the
in: titmion during the captivity of the Jews in Egypt~
or on any other public emergency.
The plssage in the second l hapter of Genesis~ which
creates the whole controversy upon the subject, is not
inconsistent with this opinion; for as the seventh day
was erected into a sabbath, on account of God's resting
upon that day from the work of the creation, it was
natural enough for the historian, when he had related
!he history ot the cl"f~ation, and of GOd'f cea~illg from