the type of the deliverance from the bondage of Egypt in emancipating us from the bondage of sin. (2) The Levitical penalty of death for the transgression of the Law is, of course, removed with the obligation of the Law itself. 4. But the Adamic law remains. (1) .As Gentiles, we were never under the Levitical Law. The institution of the Levitical sabbath, or the incorporation of the patriarchal sabbath in the Mosaic code, left us still where we were, under the Adamic law. (2) And as the enactment of the Mosaic Law, which mainly concerned the Hebrew people and their land, left us where we were, so do we remain there after the abrogation of the Mosaic Law. (3) But what effect has that abrogation upon the Hebrew? It leaves him where he was before the publication of his Law, viz. in common with mankind at large, still under obligation to observe and keep the sabbath of the Adamic law. (4) This reasoning is equally good, whether we identify the sabbatic law as set out in the Decalogue with the Adamic law on the one hand, or with the Levitical on the other. II. How IT SHOULD BE KEPT. It should be kept: 1. As a day of rest from &u,siw"1. (1) The idea of rest is expressed in its name. It was the most obvious idea in the injunction from the beginning. God hallowed it, or separated it from the six days of the week, because on the seventh day he rested from the work of the creation. (2) The rest of God does not imply that he was weary from his work, but that he ceased from the action of creating, 'l'his is the import of the word (m:i.111•,). The teaching is that God so constituted his creation that his active creatures need a hebdomadal pause or rest. (3) To ensure this to them he mercifolly constituted it into a law. He foresaw that otherwise it would be refused under the influence of cupidity, avarice, tyranny, and stupidity. 2. As a day of holy convocation. (1) Rest being secured from the toil of business, the activities of the soul have now to be turned into another course. Ohange really constitutes the rest of an essentially active nature. So the rest of God from creation is his work in providence and redemption. This our Lord taught ns when he said, "My Father worketh hitherto," or until now (t.,, lip...) (John v. 16, 17; comp. l's. xxxi. 19). (2) That change which is the greatest from the activities of business is communion with God in his worship and service. This seems to have constituted the blessing of the seventh day, for on that day God visited bis children in Eden. Ever since it has been the season sacred to religious services, (3) Men must not be diverted from this noblest of pursuits by seeking their own pleasure on the sabbath day (Isa. lvili. 13). 3. As a day of prophetic anticipation. (1) Barnabas (in his Epistolm, cap. xv.) puts this subject thus: ".Attend, my children, to what he says, •finished in six days'-tbat is to say, in six thousand years the Lord God will consummate all things, for with hitn the day is a thousand years, as he himself testifies, saying, • Behold, this day shall be as a thousand years.' Therefore, children, in six days-that is, in six thousand years-all things shall be consummated. And he rested tlie seventh day, that is, when his Son shall come and make an end of the time of the wicked one, and shall judge the ungodly, and shall change the sun, and moon, and stars; then shall he rest gloriously in the seventh day." (2) These views seem to be io harmony with the sacred calendar of prophecy, .And '.Paul in particular refers to the ",abbath-lreeping which remaineth for the people of God" (Heb. iv.).-J. .A. M. Ver. 3.-.Aspe.cts of the sabbath. We are reminded of- I. 1TB ORIGIN IN EARLIEST HUMAN HISTORY. "The seventh day is the sabbath of rest" (see Gen. ii, 2, 3), II. 'l'HE SPECIAL OBLIGATION REBTmG ON ISRAEL, AS A REDEEMED PEOPLE, TO ODSERVE IT. "The Lord thy God brought thee out thence . . . therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day" (Dcut. v.16). We, also, as those redeemed at far greater cost, may feel ourselves on this ground constrained to observe it. III. ITS PLACE IN THE PROPHETIO TESTIMONY. It is deeply significant that the prophets, who were the rebukers of mere ritualism and the advocates of the moral and spiritual elements in religion, should have given so high a place as they did to the observance of the sabbath (see Isa, i. 10-16, comp. with lvi. 2 and !viii. 13, 14). IV. 1TB CHRISTIAN ASPECT. 1. It commemorates the greatest fact in human history -the resurrection of our Lord. The crowning act of redemption is more to us than the crowning act of creation. 2. Its obligation rests not on any one positive precept, but on the known will of Christ. 3. It meets the two great wants of man-his bodily and hi11 346 THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS. [ OH. :I.XID. 6-44,
spiritual requirements. 4. It is t.o be observed: (1) in the Church,-it is to be" an holy convoce.tion;" (2) in the home,-" in all your dwellings." As individual souls we shall seek to honour our Lord and gain access of spiritual strength in the sanctuary ; as parents we shall do our best to make the sabbath a holy, happy, welcome day to the children in our homes.-C.