TIME FOR COMMENCING THE SABBATH.
[This is taken from the "Synopsis of a Lecture delivered before the Bible Class of the Shiloh Church," published in the Sabbath Recorder.] The Bible Sabbath is from evening to evening. The only opportunity left for cavil, in the minds of our brethren opposing these views, is that the Sabbath is twelve, instead of twenty-four hours long. Let us see how this agrees with facts. 1. "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." Ex. xx, 10. What is the seventh day? Does it not always imply the seventh of a succession of natural days, in all common parlance, and in all profane or sacred history? If, as we have tried to prove, the six days of creation were each a natural day, was not also the seventh, and therefore the Sabbath being twenty-four hours long, from evening to evening?—This fact is conclusive of itself, yet let us notice how the subsequent allusions to the Sabbath agree with this. 2. For forty years the Jews were weekly taught when the Sabbath commenced and ended, by the falling of the manna. Ex. xvi, 4, 5, and 14, 15, 21. This manna, which fell in the evening with the dew, made not its appearance on the morning of the Sabbath, hence, had not fallen in the evening previous; but it must have fallen in the evening after the Sabbath, as we infer from the command, "Six days ye shall gather it," that they found it on first day morning. 3. The Festival Sabbaths were instituted in the Jewish worship, as commemorative of some important event, as the weekly Sabbath is commemorative of the creation. Like the original Sabbath, they became seasons of holy convocation, and were observed with the same regulations as the weekly Sabbath in regard to their commencement and close. For, had they not, there would have been confusion in the times of observing their Sabbaths, and they would not have imitated the original Sabbath in the manner of observance. Of the Sabbath of atonement, which must be kept as strictly as the weekly Sabbath, the Jews were commanded, in Lev. xxiii, 32, "at even, from even unto even, shall ye celebrate your Sabbath." 4. The Sabbath from evening to evening was observed by the Jewish Rulers. Neh. xiii, 16—19.—The gates of Jerusalem were closed "as it began to be dark," to keep out the fish-sellers and persons bearing burdens into the city during the Sabbath. 5. The "thus saith the Lord," is demanded. Ez. xlvi, 1, 2—"Thus saith the Lord God, The gate of the inner court, that looketh toward the East, shall be shut the six working days; but on the Sabbath it shall be opened," "but the gate shall not be shut until the evening." We are here plainly taught, that the Sabbath closes at evening, and that the working days begin at that time.