MR. brown' S THIRD REPLT. 167 



The Patriarchal, Mosaic, and Christian dispensations. Justin Marttr. 



there is no parallelism in the cases. A weekly Sabbath origi- 

 nally commemorated the creation of the whole world. (^Gen. 

 ii. 3 ; Exod. xx. 11.) When the whole world had forsaken 

 the worship of the Creator, and a single nation, the Jews, was 

 set apart to restore that original worship, the weekly Sabbath 

 received a new and additional import peculiar to that nation. 

 {Deut. v. 15.) Afterwards, when the Messiah came out of that 

 nation to complete the great work of human redemption by 

 his own death and resurrection, a still higher dignity was con- 

 ferred upon the weekly Sabbath by connectiug it with the 

 memory of that grand event — the centre of the Divine works, 

 the cynosure of all eyes, the dawn of a new and more glorious 

 creation out of the ruins of the first, the prism where every 

 attribute of the Infinite Perfection, centering in the soft 

 emerald hue of love, is reflected in distinct, yet blended and 

 harmonious beauty forever and ever. (1 Tim. i. 11 ; 2 Cor. iv. 

 6; EpTies. iii. 10; 1 Pet. i. 12 ; 1 John iv. 10.) And an asso- 

 ciation of such transcendent import, if made at all, must be 

 made by attaching the weekly Sabbath to the very day of the 

 Resurrection, and thus giving it a pre-eminent sacredness over 

 all the rest. This merely circumstantial change not afi^ecting 

 the Law itself, but only giving it a new and appropriate appli- 

 cation, at once combining in its weekly rotation the three 

 grandest displays of the Divine glory, and establishing the 

 real harmony of the Patriarchal, the Mosaic, and the Christ- 

 ian dispensations, is neither improbable in conception, nor 

 contradicted by fact. And although the deliverance from 

 Egypt is less prominent in our thoughts as Gentiles, yet so 

 early as the days of Justin Martyr we find the other two 

 ideas actually in the minds of Christians. For he assigns as 

 the reasons for observing the first day of the week, commonly 

 called Sunday, as the day of Christian worship, that on this 

 day Grod, having changed the darkness and the elements, 

 created the world, and that Jesus our Lord on this day arose 

 from the dead. (CoL. Chr is. Antiq. p. 429.) And if, at the 



