DISCOURSE I. 553 one answer will serve for them all. Though the original reason of a sabbath was the command in paradise, yet that idea had been probably lost before the days of Moses, and for many ages since it had been as it were overwhelmed with the various sab- batisms of the Jews, and theceremonies depending thereupon : And though, it stood in the Mosaic history, yet as many Mosaic . laws were long forgotten and unpractised, during the state of Judaism, so this law of paradise did not immediately emerge and arise again into clear light and practice, but might be min- gled with Jewish sabbatisms in to minds of men, nor appear even to christians themselves in a distinct light. It was by the wise providence of God, that it was permitted to lie unnoticed for a season, till the Jewish christians were more brought off from their excessive fondness for Mosaic rites. And though the reasons of the change of the day, from the seventh to the first, came from the resurrection of Christ, and was plainly in many instances observed by the apostles ; yet it was not, all at once, prescribed to christians as a new command, nor introduced into the churches. The first christians for many years were originally Jews, and the first great business and labour of the apostles, after preaching the essential doctrines of religion and the gospel, was to take them off from all Jewish ceremonies, of which their sabbatisms were some of the chief this appears from scripture, with great evidence. But after- wards, when the gentiles were converted, and Jewish sabbaths not brought in among them, the importance and necessity of a certain fixed day for christian worship appeared more and more; and the observation of the first day, which had been intimated by apostolic example before, was more plainly taught aud.intro- duced among christians by degrees. Nor is this strange that it should be so, when there are other doctrinesand duties of more moment, such as the atonement of Christ for sin, faith in that atonement, &c. which our Saviour and his apostles introduced among men in the christian dispensa- tion, not all at once, but gently and obscurely at first, and by such degrees, as men were able to bear it. And it is upon this , account, that we do not read of any such signal opposition of the Jews to the observation of the first day of the week, as might have been expected : Yet the Jewish christians might make some opposition to it, as it seems from Itom. xiv. Col. ii. &c. And they did possibly observe the seventh day for some time, perhaps together with the first, or perhapswithout it, because they were not perfectly cured of judaising, and the gentile converts might sometimes join with them, partly being entangledwith Jewish scruples, and partly by way of condescension and compliance with indifferent things for the sake of peace and charity, of which St. Paul gives us remarkable examples and rules on other occasions.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=