Again, in contending for the universal obligation to separate a seventh portion of our time to the service of God, we cannot overlook the plain intimations contained in the earliest records of all nations, that, either with religious sanctions or without them, men have observed this _weekly_ division of time. Chaldeans, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, all seem to have known of it;—and the question is how, except as the relic of some universal tradition, those nations should have thought of such a measurement of time at all? For other divisions of time we can find reasons,—obvious, necessary, and natural. The daily rotation of the earth on its axis; the completed cycle of lunar phases; the sun imparting to the revolving worlds the blessings of cold and heat, summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, are phenomena quite adequate to explain why we should break up our life into _days_, and _months_, and _years_; but for WEEKS we have _no_ such reason, nor, indeed, _any_ reason to give, except that it is one of the original appointments and laws of God. It is an arbitrary period, the recurrence of which neither nature nor reason seems, in any way, to have marked out for us, but which, on the all-commanding authority of revelation, men have been taught to set apart to sacred remembrances. _The Sabbath was_ MADE _for man_. III. Thus, as far as our limits would permit, I think it has been shown that, irrespective of dispensations, or Churches, or particular covenants, God did appoint it as an ordinance for the whole human family, that every recurring seventh day of their life should be separated to religious uses. He first “_blessed_” the day, that is, pledged himself to be propitious to the service which, in spirit and in truth, men should offer Him on that day; and then “_hallowed_” it, or, as the word is, “_set it apart_,” intimating that anything opposed or foreign to such religious service, was to be strictly forbidden. If this ground have been made good, I shall be less careful to adduce all that could be said in favour of the next question which might be raised; namely, on the supposition that God has made this claim upon all men of a seventh portion of their time, is _that_ seventh which has been set apart by the Christian Church the _right_ seventh; in other words, have we sufficient reason for believing that the change of day, from the _last_ day of the week to the _first_, is agreeable to the will of God? Now the only reasons, it would seem, which could justify such change, must be found either in an express revelation, or in the ascertained practice of those, who having for three years had the Lord of the Sabbath to guide them, must have known on what day He designed it should thenceforth be kept. A change of the actual day, it has been conjectured, from some expressions in the history, was made by Moses, at the time of the Exodus, transferring the holy day to that which first saw _Israel’s redemption