EXTRACTS

FROM WILLIAM PENN'S WORKS.

Second Vol. fo. pages 51 and 479.

WORSHIP was not made for time, but time for worship: nor is there any day holy of itself, though holy things may be performed upon a day. If a Sabbath-day be moral because mentioned in the fourth commandment, then, because the Jew's seventh-day Sabbath is there particularly mentioned, their Sabbath must be only moral, and consequently unalterable.

If the fourth commandment be as moral as all the rest-as it must be, if it be moral, because of its being there-they could no more dispense with it than with any other commandment: to call that day moral, and make it alterable, is ridiculous. It is true the apostles met on the first day, and not on the seventh; but as that released us from any pretended morality of the seventh, so neither did it confer any morality upon the first:-yea, so far were they from it, that not one speaks any such thing, but Paul much the contrary." The outward Sabbath was typical of the great rest of the gospel; which, such come to who cease from their own works, and in whom the works of God's 1 Coloss. ii. 16, 17.

new creation come to be accomplished. And though I should acknowledge the other commandments to be moral,-yea, and times, too, both respecting God's worship and the creature's rest,—yet there is no more reason for the morality of that day because amongst those commandments, than for the ceremoniousness and abrogation of several moral precepts, because scattered up and down among the ceremonial laws recorded in Leviticus.

I grant the apostles met on that day,but must it therefore be moral? Certainly, the scriptures' silence in this particular must either conclude a great neglect against those holy men, in not recommending and enjoining more expressly, both water, bread, wine, and holy days, in their several epistles to the churches, or warrant us in our belief concerning the temporariness of those things. Let not our adversary reproach us for not believing that to be durable which was weaning off and vanishing in those days; but soberly consider, that the practice of the best men-especially in such cases is no institution, though sometimes it may be an example.

How is it known that John's being in the spirit upon the Lord's-day, was the first day of the week? Or what institution can be inferred from its being called the Lord's-day, in case John meant so? He, certainly, little deserves to be styled an evangelical minister, who, instead of preaching the end of all holy

days, feasts, new moons, solemn assemblies, and Sabbath-days, is asserting and maintaining the absolute necessity and service of them under the gospel. "Let no man, therefore, judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath-days, which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ." This doctrine, Paul preached and wrote; how then it should be evangelical to institute a second visible Sabbath in the room or place of the first, when the first was abrogated as shadowy, is absurd and incongruous; for the reason of the visible and external rest, was the visible and external creation; but because the second creation is invisible and spiritual, by the invisible word of his power-viz. the regeneration and redemption of the soul of man, (begetting him anew to God,) therefore should the gospel Sabbath be also spiritual and invisible, to which these words refer: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." We which have believed, do enter into rest. There remaineth, therefore, a rest to the people of God.3

1 Coloss. ii. 16, 17.

2 Matt. ii. 28. 3 Heb. iv. 3. 9.

EXTRACTS

FROM

DR. PALEY'S MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.

ON

THE SCRIPTURE ACCOUNT OF SABBATICAL INSTITUTIONS.

In my opinion, the transaction in the wilderness was the first actual institution of the Sabbath. For if the Sabbath had been instituted at the time of the creation, as the words in Genesis may seem at first sight to import; and if it had been observed all along from that time to the departure of the Jews out of Egypt-a period of about two thousand five hundred years-it appears unaccountable that no mention of it,-no occasion of even the obscurest allusion to it, should occur, either in the general history of the world before the call of Abraham, which contains, we admit, only a few memoirs of its early ages, and those extremely abridged; or, which is more to be wondered at, in that of the lives of the first three Jewish Patriarchs, which, in many parts of the account, is sufficiently circumstantial and domestic. Nor is there, in the passage above quoted, any intimation that the Sabbath, when appointed to be observed, was only the revival of an

1 Exod. xvi.

2 Exod. xvi. 21, 30.

ancient institution, which had been neglected, forgotten, or suspended; nor is any such neglect imputed either to the inhabitants of the old world, or to any part of the family of Noah; nor, lastly, is any permission recorded, to dispense with the institution during the captivity of the Jews in Egypt, or on any other public emergency.

The passage in the 2d chap. of Genesis, which creates the whole controversy upon the subject, is not inconsistent with this opinion: -for as the seventh day was erected into a Sabbath on account of God's resting upon that day from the work of the creation, it was natural in the historian, when he had related the history of the creation, and of God's ceasing from it on the seventh day, to add, "And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that on it he had rested from all his work which God created and made;" although the blessing and sanctification-i. e. the religious distinction and appropriation of that day--were not actually made till many ages afterwards. The words do not assert that God then "blessed" and "sanctified" the seventh day, but that He blessed and sanctified it for that reason: and if any ask why the Sabbath, or sanctification of the seventh day, was then mentioned, if it was not then appointed, the answer is at hand-the order of connexion, and not of time, introduced the mention of the Sabbath, in the history of the subject which it was ordained to commemorate.