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AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY.

The following is the account of the Treasurer of the American Bible Society, to the 30th April last, from the first

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Annual Report.

The American Bible Society, in Account with RICHARD VARICK, Treasurer.

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To Correspondents.

ceptable. Y. & Q. are received, and will be inserted. Pieces such as these will always be ac

which P. G. A. will receive his communication again through the same channel as that by

requests, is in preparation. The desire of "A Constant Reader" will be attended to, and an article, such as he

was transmitted to us. We must decline inserting it.

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THE MORALITY OF THE SABBATH.

THE word Sabbath, from the Hebrew na Shabbath, signifies rest, it having been originally applied to the day on which God ceased to speak new beings into existence. It is now applied to the first day of the week the day on which our Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead. In both cases the proportion of time to which this denomination was given, was one day out of seven; in the one the last, and in the other the first, of seven days. This apportionment of time has been made by competent authority, and for the best of objectsby the authority of God, and for the purpose of promoting his glory by acts of religious homage.

The law which appoints the day and regulates its exercises, we affirm to be moral. By this we mean, that the sacred observance of the seventh part of time is a part of that perpetual and unalterable rule which God has revealed for the regula tion of our conduct and by calling the Sabbath moral, we mean to distinguish it from all the regulations of the ceremonial law, which was binding only for a time, and was abrogated by the advent of Christ. Thus the law which enjoins the observation of the Sabbath is not ceremonial, it is not temporary, but moral; or, in other words, of perpetual obligation upon all men and in all ages. This obligation arises from the will of God, as revealed in the law of nature, and in his word; and as VOL. I....No. 5.

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there is no situation in which mankind are not favoured with one or other of these lights, the obligation of observing the Sabbath rests upon all men.

The morality of the Sabbath does not arise, as some suppose, from its conformity to reason, or its expediency in promoting the health and comfort of the creatures, but principally from the will of God: and since this will is immutable and eternal, the obligation arising from an expression of it must in all respects be commensurate with the will itself.

If then it can be proved, that it always has been the will of God that we should rest from worldly employments, and devote to his worship, a seventh part of time, the morality of the sabbath, and consequently our moral obligation to observe it, will be established.-This is the argument on which we rest the morality of the Sabbath, viz. That its holy observation is the will of God.

That it is and always has been the will of God that a seventh part of time should be kept holy, appears,

1st. From the fact that the Sabbath was instituted before the fall of our first parents.

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Immediately after the account given by Moses of the creation of the world, we thus read: "The heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them and 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 God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made," Gen. ii. 1, 2, 3. From this passage it appears, that God did sanctify, or (which is the same thing) did set apart, from the beginning, one day in seven to sacred uses-to be observed by all mankind as a day of sacred rest; and to show the force of obligation which devolved upon them by virtue of this consecration, God himself ceased on this day from all his work, thus presenting an example for our everlasting imitation.

Such a consecration of the seventh part of time decidedly announces the will of God in reference to its holy observance ; and this EARLY expression of that will clearly proves the mora

lity of the Sabbath. For, at that time, there was not a single type or ceremony instituted; man was as yet in a state of innocence as he therefore needed no redeemer, so he needed no type or figure which pointed to that redeemer. The Sabbath then being instituted before the introduction of types, is not of ceremonial, but of moral and perpetual obligation.

2dly. That it always has been the will of God that the Sabbath should be kept holy, may be inferred from the practice of ancient saints before the giving of the ceremonial law, and the renewal of the moral law to the Jewish nation.

In the fourth chapter of Genesis, at the 3d and 4th verses we read, that “in process of time Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord: and Abel he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof." Critics on this passage observe, that the words process of time, would be better rendered, "at the end of days," and they are so translated in the margin of some of our Bibles. The time therefore on which Cain and Abel, according to Divine institution, performed their worship, and brought their offerings unto the Lord, was the Sabbath, or the end of the days of labour.

From that time we have the strongest presumptive proof, that the Patriarchs strictly observed the Sabbath, and handed down both its institution and its practice from one generation to another. It is readily admitted, that during their history there is no express mention of the Sabbath; but it does not therefore follow that no Sabbaths were observed. The silence of history in respect to the continuance of any acknowledged institution, is no proof that it has been discontinued, especially if the grounds of the original institution remain the same. There is no instance recorded of a child circumcised on the eighth day, from the time of Isaac till the circumcision of John the Baptist: but does it therefore follow that during that period the sign of the covenant did not distinguish from all others the peculiar people of God? Nor does the silence of Scripture in relation to a patriarchal Sabbath prove its abrogation; on the contrary, we have the strongest inferential reasons for believing its existence and observation. Abraham, we

read, expressly commanded his children and his household to keep the statutes of the Lord; and, no doubt, among others, the original statute relating to the Sabbath. What other reason than his knowledge of the will of God on the subject can be assigned for Noah's observing the revolution of seven days while he was in the ark? There we find him once and again calculating the duration of the waters by seven days, and after the seventh day sending out a dove to ascertain whether they were "dried up from off the face of the earth." Gen. viii. 10-12.

On what other principle can we account for the Israelites keeping the Sabbath in the wilderness BEFORE THE giving of THE LAW on Sinai? In the sixteenth chapter of Exodus, at the 22d verse, we find the people of Israel, of their own accord, without any previous direction, gathering two days' provision of manna on the sixth day of the week. For what purpose could this be but to avoid the necessity of gathering their food on the Sabbath? Hence when the rulers took notice of this practice, and informed Moses of it, (under the impression probably that such conduct contravened the general command, "let no man leave of it till the morning,") Moses approves of what the people had done, as perfectly consistent with God's ancient institution of the Sabbath. "And all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses: and he said unto them, This is that which the Lord hath said, To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord." And when the seventh day arrived, speaking of the surplus which had been laid up the day before, he said, "Eat that to-day; for to-day is a Sabbath unto the Lord." It is worthy of observation that Moses does not say, to-morrow shall be the rest of the Sabbath, as if it was then for the first time instituted; but, to-morrow is the rest; thus speaking of it as a day well known to them, being originally consecrated to the service of God when he ceased from the work of creation.* From these facts it appears that the will

* We are aware that very learned men have advocated a different hypothesis, in relation to the Jewish Sabbath, as distinguished from the Patriarchal, viz.

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