Gen. i. 31.

fet apart or fanctified; yet could he have spoke the Chaos at once into Order and Beauty, as he spoke Light, the nobleft Ornament and Glory of this World, into Being, at a Word.

By this Account we are taught that the first State of all Things was very good, in a moft happy and harmonious Condition, when God pronounced them emphatically very good: fo that the seventh Day does not at that Period fignify one Day in seven, as God was afterwards pleafed to appoint it for a Memorial, when Sin and Death, its Curfe or Wages, had entered into the World; for at that Time the very bleffed and glorious Conftitution of all Things,. in which divine Goodness had finifhed and left them, was loft and forfeited.

Before the Curfe the feventh Day imported the general and continual Happiness of the Creation, which is made more evident and certain from the conftant Senfe, that the feventh Day, Month, and Year afterwards introduced by the Fall of Adam carry, in order to represent the original State of Felicity, when God bleffed the feventh Day, as the full Completion of his Work in this particular System.----It has been indeed a Tradition very ancient among the Jews, that the fix Days typify fo many Days in the great myftic Sense, in which each Day stands for a thousand Years, and the feventh remains a Figure of a State of Rest, or a Sabbath to return at that Period.

This Tradition is in all Probability much earlier than Rabbi Elias, to whom the Jews, out of an extreme Veneration for their blind Guides, would ascribe it. And these modern Scribes (I. mean fuch as are of later Date, or fince the Coming of Chrift) when they recover a Doctrine taught of old in the Schools of the ancient Prophets, who were spiritual Interpreters of their Law, claim it as their own, with the fame Pride, as the Greeks concealed the Source of their Knowledge to be thought Originals.

However it came to be revived, this Opinion is fupported by very good prefumptive Marks and Characters in Scripture: for as therein Adam is fhewn, in this first feventh Day, or Sabbath of God, in a State of great Glory and Happiness, as his Son, and the Father of an Offspring to be born, or derived from him in

the

the fame Glory; fo when the great Overthrow and Forfeiture happened, and Death as the Curfe, entered by the Sin of Man, the fame Number is carried on; not only as a Memorial of the glorious State he had loft, but as a kind Pledge and Earneft, that the great Forfeiture fhould be, by the Grace and Inftrumentality of a Redeemer restored again on a feventh Day. Hence it was, that this Day, under those Types peculiar to the Promise of the Restoration (for the Types have different Parts affigned) reprefents a State of univerfal Reft and Peace, Love and Felicity in Man, and in all the Creation about him. On this Account, the Hebrew Word expreffes Seven and Fulnefs: Thus, the seventh Day still - represented, with as much Propriety as a Figure could do, that first very happy Conftitution of all Nature, when God pronounced his Bleffing on the first seventh Day of this Syftem.

It seems, therefore, fet up to preferve the Memory of this bleffed State, and to ftand as the Claim and Witnefs of God, that he had left a Blessing on his Works; and that Death and all the Miseries included in that Expreffion, were not his original Work, but the Effect and Wages of the great Sin of Adam. Yet, as a Record of Bleffings loft, would be of little Comfort indeed to Mankind, who were concerned in it, it stood alfo as a Promife in Figure, that all the Forfeitures fhould be removed by the Seed of the Woman, who was to destroy the Works of the Devil; all the Evils brought forth by Sin in him, and in Adam, through his Temptation.

This Day was afterwards confidered as very facred among all heathen Nations, which defcended from Noah and his Children, and which were at first, of one Lip or Tongue, that is, of one Faith and Religion. Thefe, by Length of Time and the Growth of Idolatry, forgot the original Sense of it, both as a Memorial of the first happy State of the Creation, and as a Promise of a Restitution of all Things; and they began to make a Mystery of the Number itself. Hence the common Notion, that it contained some secret Charm and Virtue, introduced that Kind of mysterious Numbers and Calculations, in which the Eastern Nations, placed near the Fountain of ancient Truths from Noah, were fo famous

and

and in particular, the Chaldeans and Ægyptians, and from them, the Schools of Pythagoras and Plato. I do not deny that Seven has no Foundation or Ground, in the Nature of Things, fince I believe this System to be created in feven Principles answering to the Days of the Creation. Three of these appear: The heavenly and spiritual Powers of Fire, Light, and Spirit; and the other feem to be earthy, a general Name, for all inert and paffive Matter, as vλn Sylva, or Materia, was the philofophic Word in the fame general Sense among the Greeks. The first three operate upon the other, as their Ground and Matter, under which Veil Jehovah conceals himself in all Worlds; the Father in the created Fire, the Word in the created Light, and the Holy Spirit in the created Wind. These are called the Faces of Jehovah, or the distinctive outward Manifeftations of the three-fold Effence, Life and Operation of the Triune Godhead, which, in its pure Spirituality, could not be brought into any Exhibition or Visibility, without these created Mediums and Veils.

Divine Wisdom, to preferve the true Meaning of this Number pure, from the future Corruptions of falfe Religion, instituted a feventh Day, Month, and Year, and feven Weeks, and seven Times feven Years, as the fhutting up and finishing of its great and interior Signification. Therefore these Seasons, as they ftood Memorials of original Bleffings loft, and promised to return, could not but be, as they were, Times of Reft and Joy, in the Figures or Shadows of Moses.

This double Truth was preferved when Adam and Eve were driven out of Paradife, by the Appointment of a seventh Day; which was to ftand as a Witness in that temporal Covenant, confined to the Jews only, who were but one People from the common Blood of Adam; looking backward on Immortality loft, and forward to the Restoration of it, to all Mankind, who were not included in the temporal Covenant defigned for a Figure only of the true and general One, with all Nations defcended from Adam, under Death. By this Inftitution the God of the Hebrews was declared the One Creator and Governour of the World, which

plainly

plainly forbad every Kind of Idolatry and mixed Worship of other fubordinate Beings with him.

Secondly, It declared that God had left all Things very good at firft, till Adam, the common Head of all Nations made of one Blood, had brought forth Death by his Sin and the Curfe or natural Evil, on the outward World, his Kingdom.

Thirdly, As it bore the Memorial of the first Ruin of the human Race; fo, it contained the Promife of him who ftands clofe to the Record of the Fall and Death in the Account of Mofes; and who was to reftore all the great Forfeitures brought upon all Nations. This Promise was renewed to Abraham in his prophetic Name, as the Father of many Nations; and not to Abram in his private Character, as Father of the Jewish People only: To whom the temporal Covenant containing, under the Veil of Figures, the glorious Covenant for all the Tribes and Families of the Earth, was confined and granted for the Sake of the greater. When, therefore, God, after working the fignal Deliverance and Redemption of the Ifraelites from Egypt, appointed the feventh Day to be observed by them, it fupported the fame Truth, in general as before: But the Motive by which this People only could be called upon to keep it, was new and peculiar to them; as God was only their Redeemer from the State of great Misery in Ægypt, The Propriety of the divine Command to this People, seems to depend on this Diftinction: Remember that thou waft a Servant in Deut. v. 15, the Land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence, through a mighty Hand, and with a stretched out Arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath Day.

This Injunction cannot imply, as some mistake the Point, that the Ifraelites did not know or observe a seventh Day, as all other Nations did at that Time; but it binds them by a new and particular Motive, which could not belong even to their common Father, Abraham; because He was not redeemed from Ægypt, nor could He fee the Promise of their Deliverance fulfilled; nor could it belong to any other People, who yet obferved a feventh Day, as Part of the original Revelation, defcending from Adam, to all the

Nations

Nations of his Blood, even before Abraham or Mofes were born. On the fame Account God declares himself at the Head of the ten Commandments, to be the Lord their God, who had brought them out of Egypt, from the House of Bondage.

In this Light alfo, the Sabbath is called a Sign between God and them; a Sign of their owning him to be the Creator of Heaven and Earth, the one true God of all Nations; and also a Sign of his being their Redeemer and Deliverer out of Ægypt, in a particular and appropriated Senfe. But that the feventh Day might not lofe its first universal Meaning of the happy State of Things in the first Sabbath of God, divine Wisdom appointed fome Commands, which tended to preferve the Memory of that original Conftitution, and of their peculiar Redemption out of Ægypt, and alfo the Promife of a great Sabbath yet to come.

་

To keep in View the firft Sabbath of God, the fourth Commandment seems to be more immediately defigned, in which a total Reft from all fervile Labour was enjoined to Man and Beast. On the other hand, as they were alfo to regard the feventh Day in a limited View, as a Memorial of their Redemption (which is thought to have been wrought on a seventh Day) fome external Rites feem prescribed, proper to fix, not only the Remembrance, but the Manner of this great Event. For as they did not strike or lift up their Hand in this wonderful Work; as it was effected by the Power of God without any Concurrence on their Part (which was demanded afterwards in Joshua's Conquefts) called his Arm ftretched out, and his Hand lifted up; because the Miracles performed for this End, were the most plain and vifible Display of divine Power. Hence their Redemption represented also the Sabbath of Creation; both of which God effected by his fole Almighty Power, and his free and undeserved Goodness. On this Account the Sabbath appointed for their Obfervance, as the public and national Record of their Redemption, carried an Agreement with the Sabbath of God, as near as a Figure can well reprefent.

This Inftitution alfo looked backward upon the bleffed State of Things, loft to all Nations, fprung from Adam under Death: It looks