174 OBLIGATION OF THE SABBATH. 



Change of day — no change of the law. The transfer attested by miracle. 



The way then is clear to look at the real question, the change 

 OF the day. This question has nothing to do with any change 

 of the Decalogue. This I have proved beyond dispute. It 

 concerns merely the Jewish mode of reckoning the loeeJc, fixed 

 by the miracle of the Manna, as explained by Moses. {Exodus 

 xvi. 22 — 30.) This mode of rechonincj icas a q?ecial statute 

 for Israel. It never hound any other people. It is alter able at 

 the Divine pleasure. All we want in the case is, evidence 

 that Grod has been pleased to alter it, and thus fix the Sabbath 

 to another day. " Show us the miracle,'^ says my friend W. 

 B. T., " and it sufficeth us.^' (p. 89.) I propose now to show 

 not only the miracle, but the Divine explanation of the mira- 

 cle. I bespeak an earnest attention. 



Let it be remembered, then, that the first explicit declaration 

 of faith in Jesus as the Messiah was made at Cæsarea Philippi, 

 about six months before our Saviour's death. {Matt. xvi. 13 

 — 20. — See Townsend's Arrangement.) From that day Jesus 

 explicitly announced his approaching Death and Resurrection. 

 ^' After six days," says Matthew (xvii. 1), " ahoiit eight days," 

 says Luke (ix. 18, 28), was the Transfiguration. Why this 

 specification of time, if no special importance was attached to 

 it? Both forms of expression indicate a weeÆ. The "eighth 

 day" of Luke is particularly remarkable, since this very term' 

 was used to designate the day after a Jeioish Sabbath, the first 

 day of the iceeh (see Lev. xxv. 22), particularly among the 

 early Christians. {John xx. 26.) It is then highly probable, 

 to say the least, that the glorious miracle of the Transfigura- 

 tion was on that day. But that miracle was connected by 

 some secret tie with the miracle of the Resurrection ; for the 

 disciples were " strictly charged" not to mention it till after 

 Jesus should rise from the dead. The Resurrection we know 

 was on the first day of the weelc. The connection of the two 

 miracles is thus fully unfolded by Townsend in a note to his 

 Chronological Arrangement of the New Testament. (Seepart 

 iv. Note 22, p. 116.) "The other great purpose of the action 



