been well known as an ancient institution, observed from the beginning, and familiar to those for whom he wrote, an historian, who was studious of brevity, who recorded only the more remarkable events and transactions, and even these succinctly, might, without any great difficulty, be conceived to carry on his narrative without finding occasion for any particular mention of it: and that, granting the omission to be ever so strange; if it proves any thing to the objector's purpose, it will be found to prove too much,-namely, the non-observance of the Sabbath for the period of at least four hundred years after the admitted institution of it at Sinai: for no mention of it, nor any allusion to it, occurs in the Books of Joshua and Judges, any more than in that of Genesis: and the argument might be strengthened from the extremely rare and incidental notice of the day for even a greater number of centuries thereafter. The silence, therefore, of the narrative is not, in either case, admissible as proof of the non-existence of the institution; the correspondence, in this respect, of the history which follows the giving of the law with that which precedes it, neutralizing entirely the force of the objection.*

The reply to the objection might be strengthened by parallel cases. For a period of 1500 years, from the birth of Seth till the deluge, no mention is made of sacrifice. And for a similar period of 1,500 years, namely, from the entrance of the Israelites into Canaan till the birth of Christ, although in the phraseology of the historians and prophets there may be an occasional and chiefly figurative use of the term, there is no mention whatever of the fact of circumcision as an existing rite.— Yet during these periods, there is no ground for question, both these institutions, sacrifice in the former and circumcision in the latter, were in regular course of observance.

Another objection has been derived from certain modes of expression in different parts of Scripture, which are thought to indicate the peculiarity of the Sabbath as a Jewish institution. For example, in Nehem. ix. 14, God is said to have "made known unto Israel his holy Sabbath." "Nehemiah," says Dr. Paley, "recounts the promulgation of the sabbatic law amongst the transactions of the wilderness; which supplies another considerable argument in aid of our opinion." The whole force of this argument lies in the expression "made known;" which is conceived to refer to the discovery and injunction of what was unknown and unobserved before. But the inference is unwarrantable.-The word so rendered is not used with such definite strictness. In Psalm ciii. 7, the Psalmist says, “He made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel." Was Moses the first to whom any of the ways and acts of Jehovah were made known? Assuredly not, on the authority of Moses himself. There might be a fuller and more permanent discovery of them made, when to Israel "were committed the oracles of God;" but "at sundry times and in divers manners," to preceding fathers and prophets, had God made himself and his "acts and ways" known. Dr. Paley considers Nehemiah as having reference, when he speaks of the Sabbath being "made known," not to the fourth commandment, (although the words stand in immediate connexion with the descent on Sinai and the giving of the law,) but to the narrative in the Book of Exodus, where the Sabbath is previously mentioned. Now we have already seen, that the terms of that narrative are such as to convey, so decidedly, the impression of the Sabbath having previously existed, and

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to be so utterly extraordinary and unprecedented if considered as the terms of a first enactment; that, so far from admitting the expression used by Nehemiah as a proof of the justness of Dr. Paley's interpretation of the narrative, we should regard the narrative as a proof that the expression of Nehemiah is not to be strictly and definitely understood of something quite unknown before, but ought to be taken in its looser acceptation. In the same passage of Nehemiah, moreover, the moral as well as other precepts of the law are represented as "given" and "commanded" to the Israelites. But the moral precepts of God's will were not, assuredly, then given for the first time: for, in that case, there must have been no moral law before the time of Moses, and consequently no sin; in direct opposition to the apostle Paul's reasoning in Rom. v. 13, 14, where, from the fact of the prevalence of death before the time of Moses, he infers the existence of sin, and consequently of a law, from the beginning; with the view of convincing the Jews, that there was a law antecedent to the Mosaic;-a law, the transgression of which had introduced and perpetuated sin and death, and in the damnatory sentence of which they as well as others were involved.

The principle of these remarks will also apply to another passage of a similar description,-namely, Ezek. xx. 10, 11, 12; in which "the Sabbath is spoken of as given;" and "what else," says Dr. Paley," can this mean than its being first instituted in the wilderness ?" The answer is, that, both in that passage, and in the one formerly quoted from Nehemiah, the same term is applied to God's statutes and judgments, and precepts, and laws, generally, as

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well as to his Sabbaths; from which it would follow, contrary to manifest truth, that none of them had, in any way, been "given" before.If an example is desired of the terni given being used in application to what had a previous existence, we have a decisive one at hand. It occurs in John vii. 22. “Moses therefore gave unto you circumcision (not that it is of Moses, but of the fathers) and ye on the Sabbath-day circumcise a man.” Here circumcision is represented as given to the Jews by Moses, while, in the very same sentence, it is mentioned as having been "of the fathers." What becomes, then, of Paley's question, "What else can given mean than first instituted ?" Might we not say of the Sabbath, with the same propriety as of circumcision-" Moses therefore gave unto you the Sabbath-not that it is of Moses, but of the fathers," and of the fathers even from the beginning? It is clear from this example, that such terms are too strictly interpreted, when they are made with certainty to signify original institution. Previously existing institutes and laws might, with no violation of propriety, be spoken of as "made known" and as "given," to a particular people, when, with special solemnity, with peculiar sanctions, and in a systematic and imbodied form, they were delivered from heaven to that people, and when the possession of them in this form became the distinction of that people from others.

Lastly, it is argued that in Exod. xxxi. 16, 17, and some other passages, the Sabbath is spoken of as given to be "a sign between Jehovah and the children of Israel:" -on which Dr. Paley observes," it does not seem easy to understand, how the Sabbath could be a sign between

God and the people of Israel, unless the observance of it was peculiar to that people, and designed to be so." But in Deut. vi. 8, the same term is applied to the decalogue, and to the laws and words of God given by Moses to Israel; even to those moral precepts, of which the principle and sum is "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might;" and which they were enjoined to have in their heart, and to teach diligently unto their children, talking of them when they sat in the house, and when they walked by the way, when they lay down, and when they rose up." Of these precepts, meaning especially the summary of moral duty in the ten commandments, it is said— "Thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand.” Whatever formed a distinction between the Israelites and other nations was a sign. The giving of the law and the possession of it were such a sign. "He showed his word unto Jacob, his statutes and judgments to Israel; he hath not dealt so with any nation." This was their great and divinely conferred distinction. But surely it would sound strangely to say, that the law which is summed up in love to God and love to man, could not be a sign to the people of Israel, "unless the obligation of it was peculiar to that people, and designed to be so."-All the laws and institutions of God, moreover, and the Sabbath among the rest, were a sign between Jehovah and Israel, as forming, on both sides, a test: they were a test of their obedience to him, and of his faithfulness to them.-It is somewhat singular, that, even when the Sabbath is spoken of as being a sign between God and Israel, the reason given for its observance is one which contains in it nothing at all peculiar to