law which relates to this memorial, unlike every other precept of that law,
begins with the word, "Remember." The importance of this memorial will be
appreciated when we learn from the Scriptures that it is the work of creation
which is claimed by its Author as the great evidence of his eternal power and
Godhead, and as that great fact which distinguishes him from all false gods.
Thus it is written:
"He that built all things is God." "The gods that
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have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth,
and from under these heavens." "But the Lord is the true God, he is the living
God, and an everlasting King." "He hath made the earth by his power, he hath
established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his
discretion." "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are
clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal
power and Godhead." "For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it
stood fast." Thus "the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things
which are seen were not made of things which do appear." xxxiii1
Such is the estimate which the Scriptures place upon the work of creation as
evincing the eternal power and Godhead of the creator. The Sabbath stands as
the memorial of this great work. Its observance is an act of grateful
acknowledgment on the part of his intelligent creatures that he is their Creator,
and that they owe all to him; and that for his pleasure they are and were created.
How appropriate this observance for Adam! And when man had fallen, how
important for his well being that he should "remember the Sabbath day, to keep it
holy." He would thus have been preserved from atheism and from idolatry; for he
could never forget that there was a God from whom all things derived their being;
nor could he worship as God any other being than the Creator.
The seventh day, as hallowed by God in Eden, was not Jewish, but divine; it
was not the memorial of the flight of Israel from Egypt, but of the Creator's rest.
Nor is it true that the most distinguished Jewish writers deny the primeval origin
of the Sabbath, or claim it as a Jewish memorial.
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We cite the historian Josephus and his learned contemporary, Philo Judaeus.
Josephus, whose "Antiquities of the Jews" run parallel with the Bible from the
beginning, when treating of the wilderness of Sin, makes no allusion whatever to
the Sabbath, a clear proof that he had no idea that it originated in that
wilderness. But when giving the account of creation, he bears the following
testimony:
"Moses says that in just six days the world and all that is therein was made.
And that the seventh day was a rest and a release from the labor of such
operations; WHENCE it is that we celebrate a rest from our labor on that day, and
call it the Sabbath; which word denotes rest in the Hebrew tongue." xxxiv1
And Philo bears an emphatic testimony relative to the character of the
Sabbath as a memorial. Thus he says:
"But after the whole world had been completed according to the perfect
nature of the number six, the Father hallowed the day following, the seventh,
