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is the honor of the sabbath, that it is the delight, on account of the holy of the Lord being glorified.* The other act is that of sanctification, by which he set it apart for a sign for a memorial of that benefit, because, through and for the holy of the Lord being glorified, he chuses to sanctify the elect. This is the sum of that opinion. Let us now consider, whether it be solid, and can be proved by scripture.

XX. The whole foundation of this opinion is, that, Adam fell on the very day on which he was created : which the scripture no where says. I know there are some of the Jewish doctors, who with boldness, as is their way, assert this; and, as if they were perfectly acquainted with what God was about every hour, declare, that man was created the third hour of the day. fell the eleventh, and was expelled paradise the twelfth. But this rashness is to be treated with indignation. The learned person deems,it his glory to be wise from the scripture alone, and justly; for thus it becomes a divine. But what scripture determines any thing about the day of the first sin? We have here scare any more than bare conjectures, which at best are but a very sandy foundation, on which it does not appear to be the part of a wise architect to build so grand an edifice.

XXI. Nay, there are many things, which rather incline us to think, that men's sin happened not on the sixth day. For after God had, on that day, created the beasts; after he had formed Adam of the dust of the earth; after he had prescribed him the law concerning the tree of knowledge of good and evil; after he had presented to him the beasts in paradise, that, upon inquiring into the nature of each (which also he performed with great accuracy, as the great Bochart has very learnedly shewnt) he might call each by their proper names; after Adam had found, that there was not among them any help-meet for him, for the purposes and convenience of marriage; and after God * Ifa. lviii. 13. + Hierozoic. lib. i. c. 9.

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had cast Adam into a deep sleep, then at last Eve was formed from Adam's rib. All these things are not of a nature to be performed, like the other works of the preceding days, in the shortest space of time possi. ble, and, as it were, in a moment; but they succeeded one another in distinct periods, and during these, several things must have been done by Adam himself. Nay, there are divines of no small note, who insist, that all these things were not done in one day and others postpone the creation of Eve to one of the days. of the following week. But we do not now engage in these disputes, After all these things, the world was yet innocent, and free from all guilt, at least on the part of man. And God, contemplating his works, and concluding his day, approved of all as very good. and beautiful. He had yet no new labour for restoring the fallen world, which would have been nowise inferi or to the work of the creation. But what probability is there, that, in those very few hours which remained, if yet a single hour remained, Adam should have parted from Eve, who had been just created, expos ed his most beloved consort to an insidious serpent, and that both of them, just from the hands of the Creator, should so sudden have given ear to the deceiver? Unless one is prepossessed in favor of the contrary opinion, what reason could he have, notwithstanding so many probabilities to the contrary, prematurely thus to hurry on Adam's sin? Since therefore the whole of this foundation is so very weak, what solid superstructure can we imagine it is capable of?

XXII. Let us now take a nearer view of the superstructure itself, and examine, whether its construction be sufficiently firm and compact. The very learned person imagines he sees a new labour on the seventh day, and a new rest succeeding that labour, which is the foundation of the sabbath. The labour was a promise of the Messiah, by which the world. miserably polluted with sin, was to be restored. Of this labour Moses treats, And on the seventh day God

ended his wark which he had made.* The rest was the satisfaction and delight he had in that promise, and in the Messiah promised. But let us oppose the following considerations to this sentiment. 1. If God, on the seventh day, performed the immense work of recovering the world from the fall; a work, which if not greater, yet certainly is not less than the creation of the world out of nothing, and he was again to rest, when he had finished it; certainly then the seventh day was as much a day of work to God, and no more a sabbath, or a day of rest, than any of the preceding days. For God having finished the work of each day, rested for a while, and delighted in it. 2. Moses in the second verse, makes use of the same word, by which he had expressed the finishing of the world in the first. But the finishing in the first verse, as the learned person himself owns, relates to the finishing the creation; what necessity then can there be for giving such different senses to one and the same word in the same context, when there is not the least mark of distinction? 3. Hitherto Moses has not given the least imaginable hint of the fall of our first parents : is it then probable, that he would so abruptly mention the restitution of the world from the fall; and that in the very same words he which had just used, and was afterwards to use for explaining the first creation? What can oblige, or who can suffer us to confound the neatness of Moses's method, and the perspicuity of his words, by this feigned irregularity and ambiguity? 4. It may be doubted, whether we can properly say, that, by the promise of the Messiah, all things were perfected and finished; since God, if we follow the thread of Moses's narrative, did, after this promise, punish the world with a deserved curse; and the apostle still says of the world, that the creature was subject to vanity, and groans under the bondage of corruption.* It is indeed true, that the promise of the Messiah, which could not be frustrated, was the foundation of the comfort of the fathers; but the scripture no where Hierozoic. chap. ii. 2. † Rom. vii. 20. 21.

declares, that, by this promise, as immediately made, after the fall, all things were finished; nay, even this promise pointed out that person, who, after many ages, and by various acts, not of one and the same office, was to effect the true consummation.

XXIII. Our learned author urges the following reasons, why those two finishings are not to be looked upon as the same. 1. It would be a tautology, if not an inexcusable battalogy, or idle repetition, in such a compendious narrative; and either the first verse, or the beginning of the second, would be superfluous. 2. The finishing or ending, ver. 2. is annexed to the seventh day, by a double article, in the same manner as the rest is. And on the very seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the very seventh day from all his work which he had made. So that, if the former verb VAJCAL be rendered by the preterpluperfect, and he had ended, the latter VAJISHEBOTH must be rendered so too, and he had rested; but this is incongruous. Nay, since on the other days we reject the preterpluperfect sense, lest the works of the following day should be referred to those of the preceding; contrary to historical truth; it ought not then here to be admitted on the seventh day. 3. When the third verse shews the cause of this rest, it speaks of distinct finishings, the latter of which is that of the seventh day, And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work, which God BARA created and made. By two verbs he describes two actions; BARA denotes to create, and NGASH, to adorn, to polish. These words are frequently of the same import, yet, when joined together, they are to be distinguished; as is owned not only by Christian, but by Jewish interpreters. (Thus it is, Is. xliii. 7. where another word is added, JETZAR, to form; and as to all the three, BARA certainly signifies, the creation of the soul, but JATZAR, the formation of the body, and NGASAH, reformation by grace.) But these two actions are so describ

ed, that MANGASAEH, making, immediately precedes resting, and was the work of the seventh day; but BERIAH, creation, the work of the six preceding days. 4. To the same purpose is the recapitulation of ver. 4. which repeats and confirms the distinction just now mentioned: These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth, when they were created; in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. Thus he recites the generations both of the first six days, in which the heavens and the earth, with their. respective hosts, were created, and of the beginning of that one day, namely, the seventh, which is that of operation, in which he made and polished, inverting the order; first the earth, then the heavens. Thus far our very learned author.

XXIV. But we cannot assent to these things, and therefore we answer each in order. To the first, I would earnestly entreat our brother, both to think and speak more reverently of the style of the Holy Ghost, nor charge those simple and artless repetitions of one and the same thing, even in a concise narrative with an inexcusable tautology, if not a battology, or vain and useless repetition. It does not become us, the humble disciples of the divine Spirit, to criticise on the most learned language, and the most pure style of our adorable Master. It is very frequent, in the sacred writings, more than once to repeat the same thing, in almost the same words, at no great distance asunder. This very second, chapter of Genesis, of which we now treat, gives us various examples of this The reason of the sanctification of the seventh day namely, the rest of God upon that day, is proposed in nearly the same words, in the second and third verses. This learned person himself calls the fourth verse a recapitulation of what was just said. And what is the whole of the second chapter but a fuller explica. tion of the formation of man, which indeed we have plainly, but more briefly, related in the first chapter? Shall we therefore say, that a part of the first chapter

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