ministry of the apostles, went on periodically according to the above settled order. 1 Corinthians 16. 12. According to the first of fabbaths, lay by you, fays the apostle. Having discoursed largely of the refurrection of Christ and ours, and the matter of our victory and triumph therein, he exhorts them to abound in the work of the Lord, and proceeds to give directions relating to one special branch of that work, that is, to make a store, or treasure for the faints. This treasure was to be gathered by a weekly collection, made upon the sabbath-day, wherein each is directed to contribute in proportion to his fuccess in business in the preceding week.

It is but natural to infer, that there would be a difficulty in settling the day on which it was to be done. The jews, of whom there were many in every church, would be certain to have a veneration for their own national fabbath, which they knew to be of a divine original; and would be prejudiced against the first day of the week, because it was the pagan fabbath, on which they worshipped the fun. This doubtless had created difficulties on other occasions, and would do the fame

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fame on this. Therefore the apostle, with his apoftolic authority interposes, and authoritatively appoints the day, on which it was to be done. Says he, let it be done upon the sabbath which comes on by a calculation according to the first of fabbaths. Let your week be numbered, not according to the jewish sabbath, but let your working days be measured and reckoned according to the first of fabbaths. Work, and endeavor to get for fix days, and then keep a fabbath on the seventh; but let it not be on the jewish seventh, but let it be the first of fabbaths; the day of the refurrection, of which I have been largely difcoursing, and exposing the absurdity of the errors that prevail among you concerning it. I told you above, that upon the refurrection-day of Chrift, delivered from the guilt of fin, the condemnation of the law, the sfting of death, and the power of the grave; and, received the most assured pledge and proof of our immortality. Therefore to perpetuate the memory of the refurrection, and confequently the redemption, and to strengthen you against errors concerning it, let the day on which it was finished be your fabbath. For as the week and fabbath were formerly calculated, to be a standing witness againft against idolatry, and errors relating to the creation of the world, so now must the week and fabbath be a standing witness for the redemption of the fame world, which was finished on the first day of the week. Work then all the week for fix days, then rest, and hold a fabbath on the first day, and make this collection on that day, when you are gathered together for the purposes of divine worship. For this is what I do ordain in all other churches.

The apostle therefore in this place, sinks the credit, destroys the authority of the day of the jewish sabbath, and turns it over into a working day, and fets up the first day of the week in the room of it as the only fabbath.

And he had many reasons for fo doing; one was, that the jewish sabbath, yea, all their fabbaths, are, in a certain mystical sense, reckoned to have come over into the christian sabbath along with the dawn of the refurrection morning. So it is expressed in Matthew 28. 1. The evening, or end of fabbaths, dawning into the first morning of fabbaths. Here it appears that the evening preceding preceding the refurrection, was the evening, or end of some preceding sabbath, and that that morning, was the first, or beginning of some succeeding ones. It is impossible to doubt whether the foregoing were the jewish, nor can we be at a loss to know that by the succeeding, we are to understand the christian; because, there were no others to be set in opposition to each other.

It is here then further asserted, that the end, or evening of the foregoing sabbaths, dawned itself into the morning, or first of the succeeding. This is not spoken according to the real state of things, but according to what appears to us, which is the most eligible way. According to this common mode of speaking, it is here reckoned that the end, or twilight of the foregoing jewish sabbath, winged itself away from the western, to the eastern horizon, and came over into the MIA of the new fabbaths, and along with it, all the sabbaths with which it was connected.

The evening of the sabbath which preceded

the resurrection, was the OPSE, or, as the word fignifies, signifies, the utmost edge and extremity, not of that fabbath only, but of fabbaths, in a general and indefinite sense: all former fabbaths, fabbatical years, jubilees, and primitive holy days, came over, with all their attendant authority, and landed in the east that morning, and were involved and comprehended, in one folemn day, set up in the front of the week, to be the unalterable sabbath of christianity. The lighting up of that morning then, was the dawn of the new world, the reduction of all the primitive sabbaths of the world, and their passing over out of their first situation, into the MIA of the new creation.

Consequently the ancient sabbaths are not lost, but removed out of their first places, and as it were reduced, contracted, and comprehended, within the limits of one high and great day, which alone must be called, and honored as a fabbath.

Here then we may fee, not only the reality, but the authority, pre-eminence, and fublimity of the christian sabbath. Christ had upon that morning all things in the universe brought down under

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