DISCOURSE 1. 551 'it, or what necessary influence it has towards the honour of God, or the welfare of man ; and therefore I cannot see, that it is of perpetual obligation, or that it is unchangeable. And though God might once command it to the Jews, or to'Adam and the patriarchs yet he might make a change of it upon any proper occasion. Since therefore, we christians obey the command of keeping one day in seven for rest and worship, which seems to be moral ; and since in the mere nature of things there seems to be as good reasonto observe -the flint day of the week in honour of our Lord's resurrection, and our redemption from sin and hell, as the patriarchs had to keep the seventh in imitation of God's resting from creation, or the Jews' keeping their sabbath to commemorate their deliverance and rest from Egytian bon- dage ; and further, since it was the direction and example of the apostles, and seemsto be the most general opinion and prac- tice, of the primitive christians and churches, to keep this day ; I think our reasonings on this side are the strongest and most weighty. There is so far as I can find, no plain proof in all the New Testament of christians' ekeeping the seventh day as a sabbath, after the christian dispensation began at Pentecost ; Acts ii. and since the honours due to God for the . creation of the world, as well as for the redemption by his Sou, are paid to him one day in seven, by our resting and worshipping on that (lay, in con- formity to apostolic example we think the first day of the week bids much fairer for our observance, than the sabbath of the Jews. But to make it yet plainer, that the keeping of the se- venth day of the week has no morality in it, let us enquire whe- ther there are not some cases, wherein it is impossible to be precisely observed, even though it were once known : As for instance, Ifa nation kept their sabbath on the seventh day by suppos- ed divine appointment, and a fleet of their ships should be sent round the world, travelling towards the west, this would make their days longer ; and as they would find fewer days in com- passing the globe, so they would find their own sixth day to be the sabbath of their nation at their return home. Or suppose they should travel towards the east, their days would be shorter and morein number, and they would find their own eighth, or first day of the week, to be the nation's public sabbath at their return. Now if either the first or last day of the week appear to have any thing moral in them, surely it ought to be observed And thus in the nation there would be three sabbaths kept, viz. * Some have supposed, that the apostle's argument in Heb. iv. it implies the seventh day sabbath observed by some christians. I have searched into that text, aid I think Paul's argument is very good without that supposition. But if it be granted that Hob. iv. intiniktes the Jewish sabbath to be kept, it is only by con- verted Jews ; and let it be remembered that these Jewish christians were very long a weaning from Ju *ism.
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