shalt thou delight thyself in the Loed ; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father ; for the mouth of the Lobd hath spoken it." (Is. lviii. 13, 14.) Gesenius is very much puzzled at this. The prophets predicted that under the Messiah the true religion was to be extended to the ends of the earth. But the public worship of God was by the Jewish law tied to Jerusalem. That law was neither designed nor adapted for a universal religion. To those, therefore, who believe that the Sabbath was a temporary Mosaic institution to pass away when the old econ- omy was abolished, it is altogether incongruous that a prophet should represent the faithful observance of the Sabbath as one of the chief blessings and glories of the Messiah's reign.
These considerations, apart from historical evidence or the di- rect assertion of the Scriptures, are enough to create a strong, if not an invincible presumption, that the Sabbath was instituted from the beginning, and was designed to be of universal and per- manent obligation. Whatever law had a temporary ground or reason for its enactment, was temporary in its obligation. "Where the reason of the law is permanent the law itself is permanent.
The greater number of Christian theologians who deny all this, still admit the Sabbath to be a most wise and beneficent institu- tion. Nay, many of them go so far as to represent its violation, as a day of religious rest, as a sin. This, however, is a conce* sion that the reason for the command is permanent, and that ii God has not required its observance, the Church or State is bound to do so.
Direct Evidence of the ante-Mosaic institution of the Sabbath.
Presumptive evidence may be strong enough to coerce assent. The advocates of the early institution of the Sabbath, however, are not limited to that kind of evidence. There is direct proof of the fact for which they contend, —
1. In Genesis ii. 3, it is said, " God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it ; because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.', It is indeed easy to say that this is a prolepsis ; that the passage assigns the reason why in the times of Moses, God selected the seventh, rather than any other day of the week to be the Sabbath. This is indeed possible, but it is not probable. It is an unnatural interpretation which no one would adopt except to suit a purpose. The narrative pur- ports to be an account of what God did at the time»of the crea-
326 PART m. Ch. XIX. — THE LAW.
tion. When the earth was prepared for his reception, God cre- ated man on the sixth day, and rested from the work of creation on the seventh, and set apart that day as a holy day to be a per- petual memorial of the great work which He had accomplished.1 This is the natural sense of the passage, from which only the strongest reasons would authorize us to depart. All collateral reasons, however, are on its side.
In support of this interpretation the authority of the most impartial, as well as the most competent interpreters might be quoted. Grotius did not believe in the perpetuity of the Sabbath, yet he admits that in Genesis ii. 3, it is said that the seventh day was set apart as holy from the creation. He assumes, on the au- thority, as he says, of many learned Hebrews, that there were two precepts concerning the Sabbath. The one given at the beginning enjoined that every seventh day should be remembered as a memorial of the creation. And in this sense, he says, the Sabbath was doubtless observed by the patriarchs, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, etc. The second precept was given from Mount Sinai when the Sabbath was made a memorial of the deliverance of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage. This latter law enjoined rest from labour on the Sabbath. The Scriptural argument which he urges in support of this theory, is, that in all the accounts of the journeyings of the patriarchs, we never read of their resting on the seventh day ; whereas after the law given from Mount Sinai, this reference to the resting of the people on the Sabbath is of constant occurrence.2
Delitzsch says " Hengstenberg understands Genesis ii. 3, as though it were written from the stand-point of the Mosaic law, as if it were said, God for this reason in after times blessed the seventh day ; which scarcely needs a refutation. God himself, the Creator, celebrated a Sabbath immediately after the six days' work, and because his o-ajS/ftmayAos could become the o-a^ancr/Aos of his creat- ures, He made for that purpose the seventh day, by his blessing, to be a perennial fountain of refreshment, and clothed that day by hallowing it with special glory for all time to come." 8
Baumgarten in his comment on this verse says the separa-
1 The force of this argument does not depend on the supposition that the days of creation were periods of twenty-four hours. Admitting that they were geologic periods, at the end of the sixth of which man appeared, and that then followed a period of permanent rest, that would be reason enough why every seventh day should be selected as a memorial of the creation, to teach Adam and his descendants that the earth did not owe its existence to a olind process of development, but to the fiat of Jehovah.
3 De Veritate Religionis Christiana, v. 10; Works, London, 1679, vol. iii. p. 79.
* Die Genesis Ausgelegt, von Franz Delitzsch, Leipzig, 1852, pp. 84, 85.