place. New and higher motives were implanted;— a more exalted, and perfect example was proposed for imitation;-a loftier standard of morality was established; — rewards more glorious, and punishments more appalling, were held out;-and supernatural aid was bestowed;and the Christian, with these incentives and these advantages, is left to apply for himself, in each case, the principles of the gospel; he is left to act at his own discretion, according to the dictates of his conscience;-to cultivate Christian dispositions;-and thus to be a law unto himself.' I Dr. Whately's Essays on some of the difficulties in the Writings of St. Paul. 2d Ed. p. 253, 254. EXTRACTS FROM DR. PETER HEYLIN'S HISTORY OF THE SABBATH. Published 1631. 66 "IN the beginning (saith the text) God created the heaven and the earth."-Which being "finished, and all the host of them" made perfect, on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made." And then it followeth," And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work, which God created and made."2 Unto this passage of the text, and this point of time, some have referred the institution and original of the Sabbath; taking these words to be a plain narration of a thing then done, according to that very time wherein the Scripture doth report it and that the sanctifying of the seventh day therein mentioned, was a commandment given by God to our father Adam. Others, and those more ancient, and of more authority, conceive these words to have been 2 Gen. ii. 1, 2, 3. 1 Gen. i. 1. B spoken by a prolepsis, or anticipation; and to relate unto the times wherein Moses wrote; and that it was an intimation only of the reason why God imposed upon the Jews, the sanctifying rather of the seventh day, than of any other; no precept to that purpose being given to Adam and to his posterity. The reason which moved Moses to make this mention of the Sabbath, even in the first beginning of the book of God, and so long time before the institution of the same, doubtless was, the better to excite the Jews to observe that day, from which they seemed at first to be much averse: and therefore were not only to be minded of it by a memento in the front of the commandment; but by an intimation of the equity and reason of it, even in the entrance of God's book, derived from God's first resting on that day after all his works. That God imposed no other law on Adam than that of the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge, the Fathers generally have agreed on. If that the law of abstinence had been alone sufficient for the justification of our father Adam, as Tertullian thinks; or if it were the first law given by God unto him -as both St. Basil and St. Ambrose are of opinion-then was there no such law at all then made, as that of sanctifying of the Sabbath; or else not made according to that time and order wherein this passage of the Scripture is laid down by Moses: and if not then, there is no other ground for this command |