ising it and calling it holy. For that day is the festival, not of one city or one
country, but of all the earth; a day which alone it is right to call the day of festival
for all people, and the birth-day of the world." xxxv2
Nor was the rest-day of the Lord a shadow of man's rest after his recovery
from the fall. God will ever be worshiped in an understanding manner by his
intelligent creatures. When therefore he set apart his rest-day to a holy use, if it
was not as a memorial of his work, but as a shadow of man's redemption from
the fall, the real design of the institution must have been stated, and, as a
consequence, man in his unfallen state could
28
never observe the Sabbath as a delight, but ever with deep distress, as
reminding him that he was soon to apostatize from God. Nor was the holy of the
Lord and honorable, one of the "carnal ordinances imposed on them until the
time of reformation;" xxxvi1 for there could be no reformation with unfallen beings.
But man did not continue in his uprightness. Paradise was lost, and Adam
was excluded from the tree of life. The curse of God fell upon the earth, and
death entered by sin, and passed upon all men. xxxvii2 After this sad apostasy, no
further mention of the Sabbath occurs until Moses on the sixth day said, "Tomorrow
is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord."
It is objected that there is no precept in the book of Genesis for the
observance of the Sabbath, and consequently no obligation on the part of the
patriarchs to observe it. There is a defect in this argument not noticed by those
who use it. The book of Genesis was not a rule given to the patriarchs to walk by.
On the contrary, it was written by Moses 2500 years after creation, and long after
the patriarchs were dead. Consequently the fact that certain precepts were not
found in Genesis is no evidence that they were not obligatory upon the
patriarchs. Thus the book does not command men to love God with all their
hearts, and their neighbours as themselves; nor does it prohibit idolatry,
blasphemy, disobedience to parents, adultery, theft, false witness or
covetousness. Who will affirm from this that the patriarchs were under no
restraint in these things? As a mere record of events, written long after their
occurrence, it was not necessary
29
that the book should contain a moral code. But had the book been given to the
patriarchs as a rule of life, it must of necessity have contained such a code. It is a
fact worthy of especial notice that as soon as Moses reaches his own time in the
book of Exodus, the whole moral law is given. The record and the people were
then contemporary, and ever afterward the written law is in the hands of God's
people, as a rule of life, and a complete code of moral precepts.
The argument under consideration is unsound, 1. Because based upon the
supposition that the book of Genesis was the rule of life for the patriarchs; 2.
Because if carried out it would release the patriarchs from every precept of the
moral law except the sixth. xxxviii1 3. Because the act of God in setting apart his
rest-day to a holy use, as we have seen, necessarily involves the fact that he
gave a precept concerning it to Adam, in whose time it was thus set apart. And
hence, though the book of Genesis contains no precept concerning the Sabbath,
