that it was the work of six days, we are reminded of the duties implied in the sanctification of the seventh. The latter being claimed by Him who is the giver of all time, we must feel ourselves constrained by every motive of gratitude, duty, and interest, to consecrate it to his service.

Though, as we have already admitted, the sanctification of the seventh day by the patriarchs be not explicitly mentioned, yet much occurs in their history rendering it highly probable. In Gen. iv. 3, 4, we thus read; "In process of time, Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord and Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock." The season of these oblations here called the "process of time," is, in the Hebrew, literally, "at the end of days." Of what days? Undoubtedly on the last of those which make up the week. No interpretation can be more natural and obvious. As the septenary division of time was made by the Creator in his work of creation, so it was the first in use among men, and repeatedly occurs in the book of Genesis. At the end of seven days, week after week, Noah sends forth the dove out of the ark. After imposing Leah upon Jacob, Laban promises him Rachel, on condition of his "fulfilling her week;" it is added, "Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week." Not only in sacred, but in profane history, this distribution of time into weeks, is mentioned as generally prevailing among the most ancient nations, the Egyptians, Assyrians, Arabians, and Persians.

From the earlier ages,'it passed down to the Greeks. Both Homer and Hesiod designate the seventh day as sacred. As this division of time could not have originated from any known law or phenomenon in nature, the only rational and satisfactory solution is, some traditionary fragment of the "six days' creation, and seventh-day rest."

That the Israelites in Egypt were not unacquainted with the distinction in favour of the seventh day, may be fairly, and, I think, conclusively inferred from the incidental manner in which the sabbath is first mentioned in the sixteenth chapter of Exodus. Among the directions there given concerning the miraculous manna, the sabbath is mentioned as an institution long since established, and well known to the people. The Lord said unto Moses, "Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, and on the sixth day they shall prepare that which they shall bring in; and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily." If the seventh-day sabbath had not been previously known to Moses, how could he have understood this order for gathering twice as much on the sixth day." No explanation was added, yet neither he nor the people appear to have been at any loss. They went out and "gathered manna every morning" successively, until they came to the sixth morning, when they "gathered twice as much bread, two omers for one man; and all the rulers of the congregation came and told

Moses." Though the rulers well knew that this double quantity had been collected for their supply over the sabbath, yet as they also knew that this kind of bread, when kept over night, had constantly corrupted, they apprehended a serious difficulty, which induced them to state the case to Moses. After his solution, it is added, " And they laid it up until the morning, as Moses bade; and it did not stink, neither was there any worm therein," as there had been before. Had this been the first time' of the Israelites keeping the sabbath, had the institution been now new to them, "it must have been enjoined in a positive and particular manner, and the nature of it must have been laid open and explained, otherwise the term would have conveyed no meaning." But nothing can be plainer from this whole chapter, than that they had already been accustomed, at least as many of them as made any pretensions to piety, to regard this seventh day as sacred. In order to preserve it sacred, the Lord regulates the falling of the manna in conformity to its known and established law; which is here spoken of as familiar to the people, and undoubtedly had been so to all the truly religious, from its first institution the day after the creation. Of course, the mention of it again during that period of sacred history, was as unnecessary as that of any other common and generally received principle of religion.

The style in which the institution was afterward renewed at the giving of the law on mount Sinai,

evidently implies that it was but the repetition of a prior command, understood and generally known from the beginning. No other command in the decalogue begins, as does the fourth, with the word "remember," (implying a reproof of former carelessness and inattention, and a strong caution against them for the future), "remember the sabbath day to keep it holy." Let that day, as heretofore, be still regarded as sacred to religion; and for the reason at first assigned, because "that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is;" then follow the very words used at the finishing of the creation, "and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord," then, at that time, "blessed the seventh day and hallowed it." In what language could there have been a more manifest reference to the original appointment? The reason assigned for it on both occasions is not peculiar to the Israelites, but appropriated to all men, as all are equally concerned in commemorating the works of creation, and in adoring the Almighty Creator.

We must bear in mind that the precepts of the decalogue were pronounced by God himself with the utmost majesty in the ears of all the people. "These words," says Moses, meaning the ten commandments, "the Lord spake unto all your assembly, in the mount, out of the midst of the fire of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice; and he added no more: and he wrote them in

two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me." These tables, thus inscribed, were, by divine order, deposited in the ark of the covenant; and are themselves called "the covenant," and "the tables of testimony." Do not these circumstances mark them as comprehensive and important above the other branches of the Mosaic dispensation? When we consider them as first spoken, then written by God, -written, too, on tables of stone, purposely to denote their perpetual duration, and kept in the appointed symbol of the divine presence; are we not constrained to believe, that, if any of the divine requisitions are of eternal and immutable obligation, those of the decalogue are of that number?

It is certain that these are exclusively intended by the term law, as it is often used in the New Testament, particularly by St. Stephen, Acts vii. 53; "Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it." Some suppose that there may be a reference to them in Matth. xxii. 40; "On these two commandments," those of loving God and our neighbour, "hang all the law and the prophets." Undoubtedly they are included in this declaration of our Saviour, "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."

If we had not been thus cautioned against too hastily concluding ourselves released from the obligation of any of the ten commands, our own reason might have taught us that, while God is one, no