SERMON L. 98 It was given ?" Was it not in paradise as soon as ever man was created that God claimed one day in seven for his own worship, as well as gave it unto Adam for his rest and release from labour in the garden of Eden ; Now there is at least asmuch reason andas much need for all the sons of Adam in all ages and nations, in their feeble and sinful state, to bave a day appointed for their own rest and for the worship of their God, as there was for Adam himself in paradise and in a state of innocence ; for hisbody was then in perfection of health and vigour, and his mind more in-. dined to remember God and worship him. 2. " Consider the original reason that is given for one day in seven to be sanctified," and this seems to confirm the perpe- tuity of it. God rested on the seventh day from his work of creation : The sabbath was given to man to put him in mind of the creation of the world by the true God in six days, and to do honour to God the Creator. But all mankind in all ages, as well as Adam their Father, should preserve this truth in their remembrance : And the continual return of a seventh day of rest is an everlasting memorial of it, and gives opportunities continually for paying homage to that Almighty Being that made us. 3. " Consider the place which this command of the sabbath bears in the law of God, when it, was renewed and enjoined to the nation of Israel : This doth in the opinion of most divines addconsiderable weight to this argument. It is one of the com- mands of the moral law, that was pronounced by the mouth of God himself on Sinai, with much glory and terror. It stands amongst those laws in Exodus xx. 1 -17. which are conceived to be moral and perpetual, except in some small limitations and accommodations to the Jewish state. Remember the sabbath-day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work, but the seventh is the sabbath of the Lord thy God, 4e. It was written with the rest in the two tables of stone, which perhaps in that typical dispensation might denote perpetuity, and that it must last like a rock for ever. It was written by the finger of God himself, which gives a peculiar honour to it, and it was laid up in the ark of the covenant on which God dwelt in a bright cloud, or a blaze of glory behind the cloud; and thus it was put under God's own eye and care, together with those laws which are of perpetual obligation. It is granted indeed that in the books of Moses there are some peculiar rigours and ceremonies, and severe prohibitions of every earthly work under capital penalties added to the sabbath and enjoined to the Jews, but these do not belong to the sabbath considered in itself; but are properly tha ceremonial and Jewish appen- dages of it. a 2
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