SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES AND LITERATURE. THE Sabbath dates, as we believe, from the creation of the world. Traces of it have been found among pagan nations, ancient and modern. It has run parallel in Judea with the greater part of Jewish history. It has been identified for eighteen centuries with the ecclesiastical and civil affairs of Christendom. The object of ardent regard, and of intense dislike, it has been the occasion of earnest controversy and of multiplied writings. Although it has not received the attention, still less the full elucidation, which its character, antiquity, and value might prepare us to expect, it could not fail long ere this time to furnish materials for a chapter in the polemics, and another in the literature of religion. And yet these chapters, so far as we know, remain unwritten. A comprehensive view, however, of the manner in which so important a department of knowledge has been cultivated, and some account of the labourers, while fitted as matters of general intelligence to gratify and instruct, seem to be necessary for guiding further research, and for shedding a direct light on the subject of inquiry. As there is little hope that we shall be favoured in this, as in various other branches of study, with a reproduction of the abler treatises of former days, might not the authors of the new works, which new times and circumstances demand, supply in some degree the want, and enhance the value, 1 After these sketches were written, and several sheets printed, the author was happy to meet with the excellent De Histoire of Koelman, and, after the whole had passed from the press, with the annotated Aphorisms of C. Vitringa, and the Sunday of Dr. Hessey. These works supply in part what he here desiderates. A |