50 OBLIGATION OP THE SABBATH. 



The " Week." Hesiod ; Homer ; Calumachus. Philo ; Josephus. Clement ; Eurebius. 



friend, " that, during the twenty-five hundred years previous 

 (to Moses), man ever did heep, or ever was required to keep 

 a Sabbath/' (p. 22.) This bold, but unfortunate assertion is 

 sufficiently answered already. I only quote it to remark tbat 

 the division of time into ^' weeks/' or " seven days/' is re- 

 peatedly mentioned (in tbe bistory of Noah and Jacob), and 

 that we know of no other foundation for sueh a division of 

 time but in the original institution of the Sabbath. 



It is difficult to account on any other principle for the sort 

 of sanctity attached to the seventh day among the ancient 

 heathen- nations. The old G-reek poets, Hesiod, Homer, and 

 Callimachus call the seventh day '^ holy/^ Philo says, 

 *'The seventh day is a festival to every nation.^^ Josephus 

 says most explicitly, " No city of Grreeks or barbarians can be 

 found which does not acknowledge a seventh day's rest from 

 labor.'^ The learned Clement, of Alexandria, a witness of 

 the highest competency, says, '^ The Greeks, as well as the 

 Hebrews, observe the seventh day as holy.'' And, finally, the 

 learned EuSEBlus affirms that " alm ost all the philosophers 

 and poets acknowledge the seventh day as holy.'' 



Now, if we allow the fact, thus testified by so many wit- 

 nesses, Pagan, Jewish, and Christian, to what cause can this 

 general agreement be ascribed, but to the law of nature, or to 

 the remains of an original tradition from Adam and Noah ? 

 These Gentiles surely did not conform to an institute of the 

 Jewish law, which they despised and hated. 



But whether the Sabbath was kept or not, during that long 

 period of human apostasy, is nothing to the point. The 

 authority of the institution remained the same, as our Lord 

 says of marriage, "from the beginning.'' The Law bound 

 men, in each case, even though they broke it. And the reck- 

 oning of the Universal Judge is sure. (See Jude 14, 15.) 



Having thus shown by " chapter and verse,'^ briefly, but 

 conclusively, that the Sabbath did not begin with the Jewish 

 people, I shall now show, in the same manner, that it did not 



