We are not able to find anything in the national world to mark the division of time into weeks: and find that their organization depends upon the order of God in the work of creation: and that the Sabbath which marks that division, has its own commemorative act. That order had already been established by the great "I Am," and could not be changed without destroying the force of its organization. Are we not forced to take one of two positions? That the custom of reckoning time by weeks was not then in use; or that it did not derive any force from anything added to it at this time. The fact of the custom of reckoning time by weeks by the patriarchs does not however rest upon mere supposition, Gen. xxix, 27, is positive testimony on that point. Laban says to Jacob when he complained to him of his giving him in marriage Leah instead of Rachel, fulfill her week; or in other words, rejoice with her during the week of the feast. It appears that it was a custom of those days, to make a feast of a week, even as it was in the days of Sampson, after the giving of the law in precept. Must we not conclude that the order of weeks was not instituted after the Israelites came out of Egypt?
There are, also, other facts mentioned, which go strongly to show the custom of reckoning time by weeks in Noah's day, viz: The frequent reference to the term seven days. See Gen. viii, 11, 12. From these testimonies, is it not apparent that the order of the Great Creator of man and the world in that work has ever been known to his church and instruction derived from, and respect had unto it? and that God in requiring the Israelites in the words of our text to gather twice as much bread on the sixth day as they gathered on other days was the confirming a knowledge already possessed, (although perhaps but slightly heeded,) and the strengthening and proving their faith in him?
Moses appears, in part, to have been called of God for the purpose of bringing his church into a systematic form of worship, giving it a paramount ("till the seed should come") organization, and making it an embodied typical system. By careful observation of customs prior to the Exode, it will be seen that he was not so much the originator (or the instrument through which they were received) of these obligations and relations as he was the instrument by which those already existing were brought into a systematic order; receiving the renewed sanction of God's approbation and special will. Leaving this part of the subject for the present; and as we have traced our text backwards to the Sabbath of creation, we will now start with the Sabbath and see if we find our text.—Let us consider Gen. ii, 2, 3. It is recorded there, God blessed and sanctified the seventh day, (which has been before noticed.) From this, we learn that God did bless and set apart unto himself, or sanctify the first seventh day of time; so that it never has belonged to man as his time. But has ever been blessed and sanctified of God. I would like to refer here, to a prophecy in Mal. iii, 9. "For ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation." Are there any of the tithes of which God has been so completely robbed as of his Sabbath? The number seven is often used as signifying perfection or complete, designating the whole. This signification of the number seven appears to be attached to it from the fact that in the first six days, the work of God in creation was completed, and on the seventh day the Sabbath instituted a memorial of the same.—Now leave out the Sabbath, and what idea can we get of perfection or complete from the number seven.
As we are here able to ascertain when and how the Sabbath was made, (for Jesus says that it was made. See Mark ii, 27,) our next point will be to ascertain whether the church had not the knowledge of the Sabbath institution, and were, therefore, amenable to its claims. Gen. iii, 15, we read of the promise of the seed which gave birth to a hope, and before which Adam dared not see God. And in verse 17, we read that the earth was cursed. I shall claim the position that the acts recorded in Gen. ii, 2, 3; iii, 15, 17 (and the same might be said of other truths recorded in the scriptures of truth) were known to the church at the time that the events were recorded to have taken place. Chap. iv, 26. We read that men began to call on the name of the Lord. No one probably will doubt that that call was inspired through the hope contained in the promise recorded in Chap. iii, 15, and that it fairly proves that that promise became the property of the church at the time that it was recorded. Although Adam was only a representative of the church at that time.
How often do we hear this promise referred to as the basis of the believers hope or faith prior to Abraham's day, and not a doubt raised that it was to that end that it was given. And who will hesitate to say that it was not the origin of that faith in which those died (who lived prior to Abraham.) Not having received the end of their faith but seeing it afar off, who are referred to in Heb. xi, 13. Gen. v, 29. Over 1000 years after the curse recorded in Chap. iii, 17, we read of Lamech speaking of the ground which the Lord had cursed. Does not this fairly prove that chap. 3, 17 was known to the church at that time? It does, and shows us that it was one of the great truths upon which the religious system of those days was based.
Gen. vi, 3. "And the Lord said, my Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh; yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.—Here we find the simple fact recorded that God said that the days of man should be an hundred and twenty years. And yet with what assurance do we find commentators and expositors of the Bible seizing hold of it, and bringing it forward as proving that the world had a warning of a hundred and twenty years to prepare for the flood (certainly not considering it as a mere record of something about which the world should be indifferent) And who hesitates, that has any faith in the Bible to concede that this is a legitimate application of the text. Now does not the admission of the conclusion that those texts contain truths that had an obligatory claim or force upon the world from the date of their record, prove that Chap. ii, 2, 3, had a like obligatory claim: as is also witness by the fourth precept of the law as given at Sinai by God, such a conclusion is irresistible. And he that would destroy one would be not for an equal purpose be found caviling at the others. How natural this view of Gen. ii, 2, 3, makes the reading of Ex. xvi, 4; "that I may prove them whether they will walk in my law or no." Let us consider Abraham the father of the faithful. Gen. xii, 1, 3. We find the making of the promise to him is the very thing that brings him to view as favored of God. And yet we find that the promise was made to him because he kept God's laws. See chap. xxvi, 5. Therefore we see that he must have fulfilled obligations which existed prior to this time, and which God calls his laws. But the Apostle Paul says that he received the promise through faith. We therefore conclude that Abraham fulfilled the obligation of the law through faith in God and not from the precept of the law as a forced obedience. See John. viii, 40. Hence we conclude that what God spake with his mouth, what he wrote on tables of stone did take cognizance of sin—of the moral obligations that were enforced upon Abraham—were the conditions (with its appendages connected with the typical service) of the entrance of the Israelites into the typical land—and of the entrance into the everlasting inheritance when fulfilled under the ministration of the Seed.
Is the professed church of God now maintaining the government of God as thus brought to view from the creation of the world? We are forced to answer, no. Then as the Lord himself has perpetuated the obligation of this government, [see Matt. v, 19] and God witnessed. And as we have found that the moral obligation of the Sabbath existed from Gen. ii, 2, 3, we are forced to admit that he fulfilled it from heaven by an audible voice that we should hear him. As the apostles also perpetuated the same, by declaring that sin is the transgression of the law—that the doers of the law shall be justified—the law entered that the offence might abound. What then is their duty wherein the government is not so maintained? The answer is plain. To come up as repairers of the breach as restorers of paths to dwell in.
A remark respecting the obligation of the Sabbath with the law which I saw recently in the Watchman, I will notice. The writer remarks of the fourth precept, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy," that it says remember it to keep it holy. And by laying stress on the word keep, endeavors to convince the mind that there was no obligation to keep it holy previous to this. The falsity of the reasoning will be at once apparent if we apply the same to the first precept. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Laying the same stress on the word shalt, and the reasoning leads us to the position that the obligation to have no other gods, originated from the giving of the precept. Can the writer inform us to whom the world were amenable previous to this?
It appears to me that the truly candid reader with the subject fairly before his mind, can hardly be found to be caviling at the obligation of the church, or worshipper of Him who made the heavens and the earth, to regard the Sabbath as a holy institution prior to its taking the form of a precept in the law. Or that he will need to look for other evidences than the scriptures afford, and which I have endeavored to bring out, to decide that the Israelites did know what day was the sixth day, and did understand the meaning of the command to gather twice as much bread on the sixth day as on other days.
O. DAVIS.
North Fairhaven, Mass., 1853.