reclining on couches after the manner of the Romans,* the upper part of the body resting upon the left elbow, and the lower lying at length upon the couch. When two or three reclined on the same couch, some say the worthiest or most honourable person lay first; Lightfoot says, in the middle.† The next in dignity lay with his head reclining on the breast or bosom of the first; as John is said to have done on the bosom of Jesus at supper; John xiii. 23. And hence is borrowed the phrase of Abraham's bosom, as denoting the state of celestial happiness; Luke xvi. 22. Abraham being esteemed the most honourable person, and the father of the Jewish nation, to be in his bosom signifies, in allusion to the order in which guests were placed at an entertainment, the highest state of felicity next to that of Abraham himself.

* Plutarchi Sympos. lib. v. problem. vi. p. 769. 780, edit. Francofurt, 1620. See the accubitus of the Romans described, with a delineation from some antique marbles, by Hieron. Mercurialis, de Arte Gymnast. lib. i. cap. xi. Amstel. 1672.

+ Hora Hebr. John xiii. 23.

CHAPTER III.

OF THE SABBATH.

THE word sabbath, from na shabath, quievit, is used in Scripture, in a limited sense, for the seventh day of the week, which, by the Jewish law, was peculiarly consecrated to the service of God; and, in a more extensive sense, for other holy days, as for the annual fast, or day of atonement, on the tenth of the month Tizri, Lev. xxiii. 32; and, in the New Testament, the word au33arov is sometimes used for a week: "I fast twice in a week," Nnoraves die Tov saßßarov, Luke xviii. 12; and a caßßarov signifies the first day of the week; Matt. xxviii. 1. But commonly the word sabbath is peculiarly appropriated to the seventh day.

In the sixth chapter of St. Luke, we read of the oaßßarov devrepotpwtov, ver. 1; the explaining of which has given the critics and commentators not a little trouble. Some allege there were two sabbaths in the year, each of them called the first, in respect to the two different beginnings of the year, the civil and the sacred. That the Jews had some peculiar regard to the first sabbath in the year, appears from a passage in Clemens Alexandrinus, εαν μη σεληνη φανῃ, σαββατον ουκ αγουσι το λεγόμενον, πρωτον, * “ Nisi luna appareat, sabbatum non celebrant quod primum dicitur," &c. Now, as their year had two different beginnings, one with the month Tizri in autumn, the other with the month Nisan in spring, there were consequently two first sabbaths, of which this, according to the computation of the civil year, was the second, and is therefore called dεUTEроTрwтоv, or the second-first sabbath.

Grotius, whose opinion is followed by Dr. Hammond, conceives, that when any of the solemn yearly feasts fell on the sabbath-day, that sabbath had a special respect paid to it, and was called μɛya, or (which Dr. Hammond saith is the same Strom. lib. vi. p. 636, A, edit. Paris, 1741.

thing) saßßarov πрштоν. Now, of these prime or first sabσαββατον πρώτον. baths, there were three in the year, at the passover, at pentecost, and at the feast of tabernacles. The first of them, that is, when the first day of the passover fell on the sabbath-day, was called πρωτοπρωτον σαββατον, or the first prime sabbath. The second, that is, when the day of pentecost fell on the sabbath, was called SEUTEроπρWTоv, which, he apprehends, was the sabbath here intended.* But as neither Grotius nor Hammond have produced any passage, in which either the word πρωτοπρωτον, οι τριτοπρωτον, occurs, this interpretation remains doubtful and uncertain. Sir Isaac Newton imagines this σαββατον δευτεροπρωτον was the second great day of the feast of the passover: as we call Easter-day, high Easter, and its octave, low Easter, or Low Sunday; so it seems St. Luke styles the feast, on the seventh day of the unleavened bread, the second of the two prime sabbaths.+ To this sense Dr. Doddridge objects, that though the seventh day of unleavened bread was to be an holy convocation, yet the law expressly allowed the Jews to dress victuals on it, Exod. xii. 16; and therefore the Pharisees could have had no pretence for charging Christ's disciples with breaking the sabbath by their plucking and rubbing the ears of corn on that day, as they did; Luke vi. 2.

Theophylact, who is followed by J. Scaliger,§ Lightfoot,|| and Whitby, makes the oaßßarov SεUTEρоTρWтоv to be the first of the seven sabbaths between the passover and pentecost, or the first sabbath after the second day of unleavened bread, from whence the fifty days to pentecost were computed; Lev. xxiii. 15, 16. There want only instances of the word δευτεροδευτερον being used for the second, and δευτεροτριτον for the third of these sabbaths, to confirm this sense beyond dispute. However, though it be not quite free from uncertainty, it seems to stand as fair in point of probability as any of them.¶

Grotii et Hammondi Annot. in loc.

+ Sir Isaac Newton's Observations on the Prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation, p. 154.

Comment. in loc.

§ Scalig. de Emendat. Temp. lib. vi. p. 557, edit. Colon. Allobr. 1621. || Lightfoot, Hora Hebraic. in loc. et in Matt. xii. 1.

¶ See Whitby and Doddridge in loc.

Thus much for the word sabbath: we proceed to treat of the thing.

It hath been controverted, both among Jews and Christians, whether the sabbath was first instituted immediately after the creation, and given to Adam and Eve in Paradise; or whether the account of God's blessing the seventh day and sanctifying it, which Moses mentions in connexion with God's resting on the seventh day, when the work of creation was finished, Gen. ii. 3, is to be understood proleptically of his appointing that day to be observed as a sabbath, not at that time, but by the Israelites many ages afterward.

Limborch,* Le Clerc,+ and some other learned men, are of the latter opinion. But surely it is more natural to understand this passage as relating to the time in which it is placed in the series of the history, that is, to the first ages of the world, previous to the fall. The chief reason for understanding it proleptically is, that there is no mention of the sabbath afterward, in the sacred history, till the time of Moses, that is, for about two thousand five hundred years. However, the same argument will hardly be admitted in the case of circumcision, of which there is no express mention in Scripture, or, however, no instance recorded of the observation of it, from the settlement of the Israelites in Canaan, to the circumcision of Christ. Nevertheless, as this rite was the sign of the covenant with Abraham and his posterity, and the characteristic of the peculiar people of God, its being constantly observed cannot reasonably be called in question, especially as the heathen are called "the uncircumcised," in contradistinction to the Israelites, which implies, that it was practised constantly by the latter. The silence of history with respect to the continuance of a rite or custom, well known to have been instituted or adopted, is no argument against such continuance, provided the reason on which the institution was originally grounded, remains the same. It can by no means be concluded, that because there is no express mention of the observation of a sabbath in the patriarchal history, therefore no sabbath

Limborc. Theolog. Christian. lib. v. cap. xxviii. sect. vii.-ix. p. 478, 479, edit. Amstel. 1715.

+ Clerici Annot. in Gen. ii. 3.

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was observed in those times. On the contrary, that the sabbath was instituted at the time to which Moses's relation of the institution of it refers, and was in consequence hereof observed by the patriarchs, is at least probable, from their distinguishing time by weeks of seven days, Gen. viii. 10-12; xxix. 27; for which it is not easy to account on any other supposition than of some positive divine appointment, there being no ground in nature for such a division.* The changes and quarters of the moon would not occasion it to be adopted, a lunar month being more than four times seven days, by above a day and a half.

It is a farther confirmation of this argument, that all heathen nations, many of whom cannot be supposed to have had any knowledge of the law or history of Moses, divided their time in the same manner as the patriarchs and the Jews did, by weeks of seven days. And it appears by their most ancient writers, Homer and Hesiod in particular, that they accounted one day of the seven more sacred than the rest. Hesiod styles the seventh day the illustrious light of the sun : Εβδοματη δ' αυθις λαμπρον φαος ηελίοιο.

Homer saith,

Εβδοματη δ' ηπειτα κατήλυθεν ἱερον ήμαρ.
Then came the seventh day, which is sacred or holy.†

Now, can we suppose they should all agree in this division of time, unless from a divine institution imparted to our first parents, from whom it was derived by tradition to their posterity.

Some have apprehended, as we have already observed, that "the end of the days," when Cain and Abel are said to have "brought their offerings to the Lord," Gen. iv. 3, means the end or last day of the week, that is, the sabbath day. But should this expression be thought to signify more probably the end of the year, when the fruits of the earth were ripe, it is not, however, unlikely that the day, when "the sons of God" are said in the book of Job to come to "present themselves before the Lord," chap. i. 6, was the sabbath, when pious per

* See a remarkable passage, to this purpose, of Johannes Philoponus, in Witsii Ægypt. lib. iii. cap. ix. sect. ii. p. 241, 242.

+ See Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom. lib. v. p. 600, edit. Paris, 1641; et Selden. de Jure Nat. et Gent. lib. iii. cap. xvi.