who is from eternity omniscient; nor can we effect an alteration in his disposition who is unchangeably good.

Nor can we hope, in the second place, to change the purpose of the immutable God. If we can change neither his knowledge of circumstances, nor his disposition, how can we reach his purpose, which must depend entirely on these? But the unchangeableness of the divine purpose has been abundantly established already. "He is in one mind, and who can turn him?" In these two respects, then, prayer offered to God, is entirely unlike prayer offered to man. It can effect no change, either in the divine knowledge or disposition, and hence, none in the divine purpose. But in the third place, is the divine agency concerned in the answer of prayer?

And here we

may reply without hesitation, yes. In the days of Scripture history, we know that God, on particular occasions, granted miraculous answers to prayer; that is, the request was fulfilled in such a manner, as impressed an irresistible conviction on the minds of beholders, that God was the immediate agent. Even in our days, how often he may as really interpose, though his hand is concealed, in those cases which we denominate special providences, we can never know. It is, however, in the regular course of events, in the ordinary operation of second causes, that as we have reason to believe, the prayers of the righteous are more often answered. And in these cases we believe the divine agency to be equally, though less remarkably concerned. For we know that in all, even the most minute events, God's efficiency is involved; as "in him we live and move and have our being."

But it is more important to remark, in the last place, that prayer addressed to God becomes efficaVOL. I.-No. XI.

72

cious as the means of the desired end. In those special cases, where God interposes by his immediate agency, it is easy to perceive how this may be. But in those more frequent instances, where prayer is answered without any extraordinary interposition, it is no less true. By some hidden connexion the answer may follow in the same natural train of events, and thus the request be a regular, though perhaps a remote antecedent of the desired end. Or if the answer do not follow in the same train of events with the prayer, yet the two trains in which they respectively occur may have been so connected in the divine mind at the beginning, that the prayer may be properly said to hold to its answer the relation of means to an end.

If then, prayer addressed to Jehovah may prove the means of the end we desire, and that in consistence with all proper views of the divine immutability, what farther difficulty remains? We believe that every event in the natural as well as the moral world was appointed from eternity; and yet the tiller of the earth goes forth to prepare his land in the confident expectation of the harvest in its season, because from former instances he has learned to believe that his labor will prove the means of the end he desires. And in this he is consistent as well as rational; for he believes that he who appoints the effect, appoints also the cause by which it is to be produced; and as he wishes to realize the former, he will strive, by the powers which God has given him, first to compass the latter. With equal consistency, as well as reason, does he who believes firmly in the unchangeableness of Jehovah, resort to his throne in prayer. For he believes that he who determined the end, determined also the means; and as he earnestly desires the object of his request, with a corre.ponding ear,

mencement of the Christian era. This agreement, however, is by no means universal. I adduced the opinion of Pool, that learned commentator and distinguished critic, that the Jews began the day at midnight. And the same opinion is expressed by Vincent, in his explanation of the Assembly's catechism, which was recommended by forty divines, among whom were the celebrated Dr. Owen and Dr. Calamy. And if they had not agreed with the author, would they not have expressed their dissent, as is done in an edition published in New-Haven, where a note is subjoined, attempting to prove the incorrectness of the author's opinion ?

Q. Q. places great dependance upon the authority of Jewish writers. What was the practice of the Jews, while they were God's people, we must learn from the holy Scriptures. For there are no other writings of Jews, till after they were rejected of God and blinded. As the Egyptians began the day at midnight,* we may suppose that the Israelites would conform to their practice, and, after they left Egypt, would do the same, unless expressly directed other wise. And if, as Q. Q. says, "The Jews at first divided the night into three watches, but afterwards, imitating the Romans to whom they had become subject, they divided it into four," why might they not begin the day at sunset, in imitation of the Romans, who began it at sunset? If they changed their manner of dividing the night, why might they not change the time of beginning the day?

Josephus lived and wrote among the Romans, and was accommodating and incorrect in his statements, as any one may see, who compares

* Encyclopedia, Art. Day. + Idem.

his writings with the Scripture history.

The grand authority of later Jews is the Talmud, consisting of twelve folio volumes, containing an explanation of their traditions. They prefer the Talmud to the holy Scriptures, though framed with almost the same imposture as the Alcoran of Mahomet." Upon such authority, Q. Q., we may suppose, from his quotations and remarks, places great reliance. I will make some other quotations, which will tend to show how much regard ought to be paid to the practice of the Jews in determining what the Bible teaches respecting the observation of the Sabbath.

as

"In order to begin the Sabbath well, they wash their hands and faces, trim their hair, and pare their nails, beginning at the fourth finger, then going to the second, then the fifth, then the third, ending with the thumb. As soon prayers begin in the synagogue, the departed souls spring out of the purgatorial flames, and have liberty to cool themselves in water while the Sabbath lasts; for which reason the Jews prolong the continuance of it as much as they can." A Jew may on the Sabbath "destroy a louse, but must not kill a flea. He must not wipe his hands with a cloth, or a towel, but may do it very lawfully with a cow's tail."t The Jewish writers have, by their fables and traditions "made void the law." And if Q. Q. had paid more attention to the oracles of God, and less to these fables, he would not have been led to contradict the Bible, as he has repeatedly done. The Bible teaches that the passover was killed and eaten on the fourteenth day of the month. Ex. xi. 6, 8. Numb. Ix. 2. 3. and XXXIII. 3. Josh. v. 10. Ezra vi. 19. But he says it was killed on

* Miller's Works, Vol. 5. pp. 131, 132. + Encyclopedia, Art. Sabbath.

the fourteenth, and eaten on the fifteenth. "The lamb was sacrificed between [the first] evening and sunset after the daily sacrifice, and eaten in the night. That is, it was killed before sunset on the fourteenth day, and eaten in the night following, which must be the fifteenth day, if the day began at sunset. As the passover was to be eaten on the fourteenth day in the evening or night following that day, this "amounts to absolute certainty," that the evening following, and not preceding, belonged to the day, and that the day did not begin

at sunset.

The Bible teaches that the fif teenth day was the first day of unleavened bread, and that they put away leaven on that day, which was the first of the seven days of unleavened bread, or put it away, and began to eat unleavened bread the evening following the fourteenth day. Ex. xii. 15-18. xiii. 3-7. Lev. xxiii. 5, 6.

But he says,

"The preparation commenced on the evening preceding the fourteenth by searching for leavened bread by the light of candles. This search continued four hours after the rising of the sun, from which time until noon the leavened bread was destroyed." But where is there any Scripture for this? As he says "the preparation commenced at three, did they begin to "search by the light of candles" three hours before sunset? When the Scriptures are so particular upon the passover, and the feast of unleavened bread, it is surprising that any should regard, or bring forward as authority, such Talmudical writings, which are so at variance with the Bible.

Q. Q. says that unleavened bread 66 was not eaten until the fifteenth day." But the Bible says it was

eaten

"on the fourteenth day at even :" Ex. xii.15-18-" a fact of *Dr. Clarke says "the preparation be

gan about twelve."

But

which I was aware;" though I was "not aware," that the Bible teaches that "they abstained from the use of leavened bread on the afternoon of the fourteenth day." if they ate unleavened bread on the evening of that day, the reader is left to judge whether this" is a very unsatisfactory reason for calling the fourteenth day the first day of unleavened bread." Or if leavened bread was put away on the fourteenth, but unleavened bread was not eaten until the fifteenth day, whether this is a more satisfactory reason for calling the fourteenth day the first day of unleavened bread, as he seems to suppose.

He mentions three days among the Jews, the natural day, consisting of twenty-four hours, and the others, consisting of twelve hours each, and extending from three and six in the morning to those hours in the afternoon, and thinks "that the last mentioned day did not commence at midnight is evident from Ex. xii. 29-31, compared with verse 22." Perhaps he meant first mentioned day. For no one supposes that the day which began at three or at six, began at midnight. But those texts do not make it "evident" to my mind, that the Israelites did not commence their natural, or civil day, at midnight. Did the command not to go out till the morning imply that they must or would go precisely at the time, when the day began? Though it is evident that they did

go out at the door of their house" soon after midnight, and consequently that it was morning. Ex. xii. 29, 30, 33. I do not know, however, that the Bible mentions a day beginning at three in the morning, and ending at three in the af

ternoon.

My grand objection to the argument drawn from Gen. i. 5, that as the evening and morning included twenty-four hours, the evening must extend to sunrise, and the

morning to sunset, he has passed in silence, and has not attempted to show that the time from midnight to sunrise is ever called evening, or the time from noon to sunset, morning. All my proofs that the order of time is often in Scripture inverted, he has also overlooked. But he thinks that, if the evening succeeding belonged to the day," the repeated mention of the evening first, to say the least of it, would have been awkward and unnatural."

And as Japheth was "the elder," and Ham "the younger" of Noah's sons, must he not consider the repeated, and even uniform, mention of them by the inspired writers in this order, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, "to say the least of it, awkward and unnatural ?"—more especially as Ham, upon whom the curse was pronounced, is repeatedly mentioned before his elder brother Japheth.

Q. Q. brings forward the circumstance of the Jews' bringing their sick to Christ when the sun was set, to prove that the Sabbath ended at sunset, without noticing one of the arguments, which I adduced, to prove that this was not the reason they brought them at that time. But if this fact" made it "evident that the Sabbath ended at sunset," and I was "reduced to such a dilemma in attempting to prove that they did not consider the healing of the sick as a violation of the Sabbath," I should have thought that he might have produced some other evidence besides the mere fact that his malignant enemies "watched him whether he would heal on the Sabbath day; that they might accuse him." I should have thought he might have shown why, if they "considered the healing of the sick as a violation of the Sabbath," they spread abroad Christ's fame for doing it-why the elders of the Jews besought him to do it, and thus violate the Sabbath, Luke vii. 1—4. Mat. viii.. 5—16. Mark i. 21

-32-why all his adversaries were ashamed for attempting, as they supposed, to maintain the sanctity of the Sabbath-why they sought false witnesses to put Christ to death, when they could easily prove that he healed on the Sabbath.

My second argument, founded on Neh. xiii. 16-19, and which “ related immediately to the Sabbath," he did not notice.

In replying to my fourth, he did not notice one of the reasons, which I offered, to prove that the expression, "When the even was come," must mean the second evening, or sunset, to which reasons I would refer the reader. But he says it must denote either the first or second evening. This I admit. But he cannot infer, that it was the first evening, "because it was the preparation, that is the day before the Sabbath," unless he takes it for granted, that the Sabbath began at sunset, which is the very point for him to prove. He says the first evening began at three. Pool and Scott say it "began when the sun had passed the meridian." But if it were three, Christ did not expire till after three. I will add another rea

son.

Would they have broken the legs of the thieves, while alive, that they might take them down, three hours before sunset, and before it was necessary to take them down.

Did he mean to intimate, as his words evidently imply, that in Lev. xxiii. 32, referring exclusively to to the day of atonement, it is " expressly stated that they were to begin the weekly' Sabbath on the ninth day?" If by "both evenings being included," he means to include the first evening, beginning, as he says, at three, then would not this prove that the Sabbath began at three?

My grand argument from John xx. 19, that the evening following the first day of the week is called the first day of the week, he wholly overlooked, which is rather