served as a sabbath. This may have been the case, but the argument is not sufficient to prove it, and the fallacy lies in taking it for granted, that it rained manna the next morning after they came to this station in the wilderness of Sin. They arrived there on the 15th day, but the history does not state that they murmured on the same day, or that manna was given on the 16th. It is only said that the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron while they were in the wilderness of Sin, without specifying the time; and there is nothing which fixes the sabbath on the 22d day of the same month; so that it is quite gratuitous to suppose the 15th the day on which they performed a wearisome march, should have been a sabbath; and hence the conclusion, that the Israelites did not keep the seventh day holy before the miraculous supply of manna, is unsound. But even allowing that they did not keep it during their journeying till this period, the proper inference would be, not that the sabbath was then appointed, but either that the day was then changed, or that the Jews then began again to keep it, the observance of it having been neglected during their bondage in Egypt.

Some of the Rabbins contend for a prior origi

Mede, Discourse xv. in Works, p. 56. Archbishop Bram. hall uses the same argument, Works, p. 912.

nal of the sabbath in the station of Marah. Shortly after passing the Red Sea, the children of Israel went out into the wilderness of Shur," and when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bittert." After relating how the waters were miraculously made sweet, the sacred historian adds, that the Lord "there made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them "." Of these, say the Talmudical writers, the ordinance of the sabbath was one; and the learned Selden has adduced abundance of authorities for this opinion"; but commonly as it was received by the Jewish doctors, it is so clearly destitute of even a plausible foundation in Scripture, that a bare statement is a sufficient refutation.

That no neglect of the sabbath is "imputed either to the inhabitants of the old world, or to any part of the family of Noah," is very true; but, so far from their being any proof of such negligence; there is, on the contrary, as we have seen, much reason for believing that it was duly observed by the pious Sethites of the old world, and, after the deluge, by the virtuous line of Shem. True, likewise, it is, that there is not

De Jure Nat. et Gent. lib. iii. cap. ix. It is refuted by Owen, Exercit. on the Sabbath, ii. § 3, 4.

any permission recorded to dispense with the institution during the captivity of the Jews in. Egypt, or on any other public emergency." But where is the evidence that such a permission would be consistent with the divine wisdom? And if not, none such would either be given or recorded. At any rate, it is difficult to see how the silence of Scripture concerning such a circumstance can furnish an argument in vindication of the opinion, that the sabbath was first appointed in the wilderness. To allege it for this purpose, is just as inconclusive as it would be to argue, that the sabbath was instituted subsequent to the return of the Jews from Babylonia, because neither the observance of it, nor any permission to dispense with it during the captivity is recorded in Scripture.

The passage in the second chapter of Genesis is next adduced by Dr. Paley, and he pronounces it not inconsistent with his opinion; " for as the seventh day was erected into a sabbath, on account of God's resting upon that day from the work of creation, it was natural enough 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 re

ligious 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 were 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."

That the Hebrew historian, in the passage here referred to, uses a prolepsis or anticipation, and alludes to the Mosaical institution of the sabbath, is maintained by some of the ancient Fathers, by Waehner, Heidegger, Beausobre, by Le Clerc, Rosenmüller, Geddes, Dawson, and other commentators, and by the general stream of those writers who regard the sabbath as peculiar to the Jews. Yet this opinion is built upon the assumption, that the book of Genesis was not written till after the giving of the law, which may be the fact, but of which most unquestionably there is no proof. But waving this consideration, it is scarcely possible to conceive a greater violence to the sacred text, than is offered by this interpretation. It attributes to the inspired author the absurd assertion, that God rested on the seventh day from all his works which he had made, and

E

THEREFORE about 2500 years after God blessed and sanctified the seventh day. It may as well be imagined that God had finished his work on the seventh day, but rested on some other seventh day, as that he rested the day following the work of creation, and afterwards blessed and sanctified another. Not the slightest evidence appears for believing that Moses followed "the order of connexion, and not of time," for no reasonable mo→ tive can be assigned for then introducing the mention of it, if it was not then appointed. The design of the sacred historian clearly is to give a faithful account of the origin of the world, and both the resting on the seventh day and the bless+ ing it, have too close a connexion to be separated; if the one took place immediately after the work of creation was concluded, so did the other. To the account of the production of the universe, the whole narrative is confined; there is no intimation of subsequent events, nor the most distant allusion to Jewish ceremonies; and it would be most astonishing if the writer deserted his grand object to mention one of the Hebrew ordinances which was not appointed till ages afterwards.

But according to Dr. Geddes, the opinion of a prolepsis derives some confirmation from the original Hebrew, which he renders, " on the sixth day, God completed all the work which he had to do; and on the SEVENTH day, ceased from doing