and fourteen years
afterwards, as some would have it. Is it not plain that the Sabbath was
instituted to commemorate the stupendous work of creation, and designed
by God to be celebrated by his worshipers as a weekly Sabbath, in the
same manner as the Israelites were commanded to celebrate the Passover,
from the very night of their deliverance till the resurrection of Jesus
from the dead; or as we, as a nation, annually celebrate our national
independence; or as type answers to antetype, so we believe this must
run down, to the "keeping of the Sabbath to the people of God" in the
immortal state.

It is argued by some, that because no mention is made of the Sabbath
from its institution in Paradise till the falling of the manna in the
wilderness, mentioned in Exo. xvi: 15, that it was therefore _here_
instituted for the Jews, but [4]we think there is bible argument
sufficient to sustain the reply of Jesus to the Pharisees, "that the
Sabbath was made for MAN and not man for the Sabbath." If it was made
for any one exclusively it must have been for Adam, the father of us
all, two thousand years before Abraham (who is claimed as the father of
the Jews) was born. John says, the old commandment was from the
beginning--1: ii: 7.

There is pretty strong inference that the antideluvians measured time by
weeks from the account given by Noah, when the waters of the deluge
began to subside. He "sent out a dove which soon returned." At the end
of _seven_ days he sent her out again; and at the end of _seven_ days
more, he sent her out a third time. Now why this preference for the
number _seven_? why not five or ten days, or any other number? Can it be
supposed that his fixing on upon _seven_ was accidental? How much more
natural to conclude that it was in obedience to the authority of God, as
expressed in the 2d chap. of Gen. A similar division of time is
incidentally mentioned in Gen. xxix:--"fulfill her _week_ and we will
give thee this also; and Jacob did so and fulfilled her _week_." Now the
word _week_ is every where used in Scripture as we use it; it never
means more nor less than _seven_ days (except as symbols of years) and
one of them was in all other cases the Sabbath. But now suppose there
had been an entire silence on the subject of the Sabbath for this
twenty-five hundred years, would that be sufficient evidence that there
was none. If so, we have the same evidence that there was no Sabbath
from the reign of Joshua til