N13259:632
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.
IT seems, that the Israelites, in the time of their bondage in Egypt, had lost the true reckoning of time, by the days of the week reckoning from the first day of the creation; if it had been kept up till that time. They were slaves and in cruel bondage, and had in a great measure forgotten the true religion▪ for we are told, that they served the gods of Egypt. And it is not to be supposed, that the Egyptians would suffer their slaves to rest from their work every seventh day. Now, they having remained in bondage for so long a time, had probably lost the weekly reckoning; therefore, when GOD had brought them out of Egypt into the wilderness, he made known to them the sabbath, on the occasion, and in the manner recorded in the text just now quoted. Hence, we read in Nehemiah, that when GOD had led the children of Israel out of Egypt, &c. he made known unto them his holy sabbath; Neh. ix. 14. And madest known unto them thy holy sabbath. To the same effect we read in Ezek. xx. 10, 12. Wherefore, I caused them to go forth out of the land of Egypt, and brought them into the wilderness. Moreover also, I gave them my sabbaths.
BUT they never would have known where the particular ⟨p. 240⟩day would have fallen, by the fourth command. Indeed, the fourth command, as it was spoken to the Jews, did refer to their Jewish sabbath. But that doth not prove, that that day was determined and appointed by it. The precept in the fourth command is to be taken generally of a seventh day, such a seventh day as GOD should appoint, or had appointed. And because such a particular day had been already appointed for the Jewish church; therefore, as it was spoken to them, it did refer to that particular day. But this doth not prove, but that the same words refer to another appointed seventh day, now in the christian church. The words of the fourth command may oblige the church, under different dispensations, to observe different appointed seventh days, as well as the fifth command may oblige different persons to honour different fathers and mothers.