ON GEOLOGIC HISTORY. 295 



ed to tlie Fourtli Commandment" by the Divine Lawgiver. 

 " Grod rested on the seventh day," says the text, " from all 

 his work which He had created and made j and God blessed 

 the seventh day, and sanctified it." And such is the reason 

 given in the Decalogue why man should also rest on the 

 seventh day. God rested on the Sabbath, and sanctified it ; 

 and therefore man ought also to rest on the Sabbath, and keej) 

 it holy. But I know not where we shall find grounds for the 

 belief that that Sabbath-day during which God rested was 

 merely commensurate in its duration with one of the Sabbaths 

 of short-lived man, — a brief period, measured by a single re- 

 volution of the earth on its axis. We have not, as has been 

 shown, a shadow of evidence that He resumed his work of 

 creation on the morrow : the geologist finds no trace of post- 

 Adamic creation ; — the theologian can tell us of none. God's 

 Sabbath of rest may still exist ; — the work of Redemption 

 ma2/ be the work of his Sabbath day. That elevatory process 

 through successive acts of creation, which engaged Him during 

 myriads of ages, was of an ordinary week-day character ; but 

 when the term of his moral government began, the elevatory 

 process proper to it assumed the Divine character of the Sab- 

 bath. This special view appears to lend peculiar emphasis 

 to the reason embodied in the commandment. The collation 

 of the passage with the geologic record seems, as if by a spe- 

 cies of re-translation, to make it enunciate as its injunction, 

 " Keep this day, not merely as a day of memorial related to 

 a past fact, but also as a day of co-operation with God in the 

 work of elevation in relation both to a present fact and a future 

 purpose. God keeps his Sabbath," it says, " in order that 

 He may save ; keep yours also, in order that ye may be 

 saved." It serves, besides, to throw light on the prominence 

 of the Sabbatical command, in a digest of law of which no 

 part or tittle can pass away until the fulfilment of all things. 

 Daring the present dynasty of probation and trial, that spe- 



