N13259:626
Sermons, on the following subjects
Sermons, on the following subjects; The manner in which salvation is to be sought. The unreasonableness of indetermination in religion. Unbelievers contemn the glory of Christ. The folly of looking back in fleeing out of Sodom. The warnings of Scripture in the best manner adapted to the awakening and conversion of sinners. Hypocrites deficient in the duty of prayer. The future punishment of the wicked unavoidable and intolerable. The eternity of hell-torments. The peace which Christ gives his true followers. The perpetuity & change of the Sabbath. / By the late Reverend Mr. Jonathan Edwards, president of the College of New-Jersey.
Hartford: printed by Hudson and Goodwin, 1780
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
DOCTRINE. It is the mind and will of GOD, that the first day of the week should be especially set apart among christians, for religious exercises and duties.
I PROPOSED to discourse upon this doctrine under two propositions: and having already, under the first, endeavoured to prove, that one day of the week is, throughout all ages, to be devoted to religious exercises; I proceed now to the
II. PROP. That it is the will of GOD, that under the gospel dispensation, or in the christian church, this day should be the first day of the week.
IN order to the confirmation of this, let the following things be considered.
1. THE words of the fourth commandment afford no objection against this being the day that should be the sabbath, any more than against any other day. That this day, which, according to the Jewish reckoning, is the first of the week, should be kept as a sabbath, is no more opposite to any sentence or word of the fourth command, than that the seventh of the week should be the day: and that because the words of the fourth command do not determine which day of the week we should keep as a sabbath; they merely determine this, that we should rest and keep as a sabbath every seventh day, or one day after every six. It says, Six days thou shalt labour, and the seventh thou shalt rest: which implies no more, than that after six days of labour, we shall, upon the next to the sixth, rest and keep it holy. And so, to be sure, we are obliged to do for ever. But the words no way determine where those six days shall begin, and so where the rest or sabbath shall fall. There is no direction in the fourth command how to reckon the time, i. e. where to begin and end it. That is not meddled with in the fourth command, but is supposed to be determined otherwise.