ABURY

...that duty we owe to our sovereign Author and Benefactor. For unless we can prove ourselves self-sufficient and independent, all nature cries aloud for our acknowledgment of this duty. Private and domestic prayer is our duty as private persons and families—since we have life, subsistence, and the common protection of Providence—but the profession and exercise of public religion is equally necessary because we are a community. We are a part of the public, a parish, a city, a nation, linked together by government for our common safety and protection. We must join together to implore from the hands of God Almighty those general blessings of life that we require in that collective role. Any person who excludes themselves from their share in this duty is a rebel and traitor to the public and is, in effect, separated from the common blessings of heaven.

But time is just as necessary to this public duty as place, as everyone's reason must dictate. Therefore, the Sabbath was instituted; it was the very first command of our Maker, given even in the happy seat of Paradise and before our fatal transgression original: "fatal transgression"; a reference to the Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden. It is the established ordinance of God and is founded upon the strictest reason. So, if we accept that the patriarchs built these temples in which to assemble for public devotion but reject the Sabbath because the scriptures do not specifically mention that they celebrated it, we think absurdly and err against common sense and reason. The scriptures were given to teach us religion, not to inform us of things already obvious to common sense and reason.

The duty of the Sabbath begins as early as our existence and is included with great propriety in the observation of the divine historian original: "divine historian"; referring to Moses, the traditional author of the Book of Genesis concerning Adam's grandson, Enos. At that time, it passed from a family ordinance to one where several families united, as was then the case. The specific nature of the expression, invoking in the name of Jehovah Genesis 4:26: "Then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.", reveals to us the form of their religion. It was founded on the "mediatorial scheme," which taught that the Mediator A "Mediator" in this context refers to a divine figure (the pre-incarnate Christ) who acts as a bridge between God and humanity. was a divine person to be worshiped; through our faith and hope in him, or in his Name, we were to invoke God Almighty for our pardon and protection. Therefore, the same scheme of religion has existed from the beginning to this day. The Mosaic system The Law of Moses given to the Israelites. intervened chiefly as a remedy against idolatry until the world was prepared for the great Advent The birth of Jesus Christ., when the patriarchal religion would be published again under the name of "Christian."

From all this, we must conclude that the ancients knew something of the mysterious nature of the Deity existing in distinct persons, which is more fully revealed to us in the Christian era. All nature, our senses, and common reason assure us of the existence of one supreme and self-originated Being. The second person in the Deity The Son, or Jesus Christ. is discoverable in almost every page of the Old Testament. After his coming, he informs us more fully of the nature of the third person The Holy Spirit.; and that third person is discoverable in almost every page of the New Testament.

That the ancients had some knowledge of this great truth is demonstrated by the learned Steuchus Eugubinus in his work On Eternal Philosophy original: "perenni philosoph." refers to "De perenni philosophia" (1540) by Agostino Steuco, using the writings that remain from figures such as Hermes, Orpheus, Hydaspes, Pythagoras, Plato, the Platonists, the Sibylline verses, the oracles, and the like. Our own Cudworth Ralph Cudworth (1617–1688), a philosopher who argued that ancient pagans were actually monotheists. has very laudably pursued the same track, as have Kircher and our Ramsay in his history of Cyrus original: "history of Cyprus"; likely a printer's error for "The Travels of Cyrus" (1727) by Andrew Michael Ramsay, which explores ancient theology., and many more, to whom I refer the curious reader who wishes to be convinced of it. I shall only add this: if we assume that an ancient tradition of this knowledge has been handed down from one generation to another to spark our reason, then this doctrine is far from being contrary to reason or above human reason. It can be deduced from reason and is perfectly agreeable to it, as I shall show in Chapter XV. Nor is this a slight matter; for if knowledge is a valuable thing, if it be the...