Reader! be pleased to give a plain answer to each of these plain questions, without equivocation or mental reservation.
1. Did God, after he had finished the work of creation, "bless and sanctify" the seventh day of the week; or simply the seventh part of time, without reference to any particular day of the seven?
2. Did He not sanctify the very day in which he rested from his work? Was not that the last day of the seven? Did He sanctify any other?
3. WHY did He "bless and sanctify" the seventh day? Was it not because he rested on that day? Will this reason apply to any other day of the seven? Did he not work on EVERY other day? (See Gen. 2:2, 3.)
4. Is not God's example of resting on the seventh day enjoined upon us for imitation? (Ex. 20:8-11.) Do we imitate him, when we rest upon some other day than the one in which He rested?
5. Is it the special appointment of God which renders a day holy, or is it our own act? Is the day holy because we count it so, or because God has made it so?
6. When God enjoins us to count the Sabbath, "the holy of the Lord," (Isa. 58:13,) is it not equivalent to telling us that He himself has previously constituted it a holy day by blessing and sanctifying it? Is it any thing more than requiring us to reckon the day to possess that dignity which He has already conferred upon it?
7. If God's blessing does not rest upon one particularly specified day, to the exclusion of all others, and we are nevertheless required to keep a day holy, are we not required to do what is impossible? For how can we count a day to be holy, which God has not previously made so? (Compare Quest. 5.)
8. If God's blessing did not rest upon one particularly specified day, could he challenge to himself any propriety in one day more than in another? Yet in the Sabbath day he claims a special propriety; "My holy day." (Isa. 58:13.)
9. Are we not commanded to refrain from labor in that very day which God once "blessed and sanctified," and thereby made holy time? "In IT thou shalt not do any work," &c. Do we obey this command when we work all of that day, and make it the busiest day of all the seven?