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<p>The law of Moses laid a great deal of stress upon the sabbath, the sanctification of which was the earliest and most ancient of all divine institutions, designed for the keeping up of the knowledge and worship of the Creator among men; that law not only revived the observance of the weekly sabbath, but, for the further advancement of the honour of them, added the institution of a sabbatical year: <i>In the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land</i>, <a class="bibleref" title="Lev.25.4" href="/passage/?search=Lev.25.4">Lev. 25:4</a>. And hence the Jews collect that vulgar tradition that after the world has stood six thousand years (a thousand years being to God as one day) it shall cease, and the eternal sabbath shall succeed—a weak foundation on which to build the fixing of that day and hour which it is God’s prerogative to know. This sabbatical year began in September, at the end of harvest, the seventh month of their ecclesiastical year: and the law was, 1. That at the seed-time, which immediately followed the end of their in-gathering, they should sow no corn in their land, and that they should not in the spring dress their vineyards, and consequently that they should not expect either harvest or vintage the next year. 2. That what their ground did produce of itself they should not claim any property or use in, otherwise than from hand to mouth, but leave it for the poor, servants, strangers, and cattle, <a class="bibleref" title="Lev.25.5-Lev.25.7" href="/passage/?search=Lev.25.5-Lev.25.7">Lev. 25:5-7</a>. It must be a sabbath of rest to the land; they must neither do any work about it, nor expect any fruit from it; all annual labours must be intermitted in the seventh year, as much as daily labours on the seventh day. The Jews say they “began not to reckon for the sabbatical year till they had completed the conquest of Canaan, which was in the eighth year of Joshua; the seventh year after that was the first sabbatical year, and so the fiftieth year was the jubilee.” This year there was to be a general release of debts (<a class="bibleref" title="Deut.15.1,Deut.15.2" href="/passage/?search=Deut.15.1,Deut.15.2"><span class="bibleref" title="Deut.15.1">Deut. 15:1</span>, <span class="bibleref" title="Deut.15.2">2</span></a>), and a public reading of the law in the feast (<a class="bibleref" title="Deut.31.10,Deut.31.11" href="/passage/?search=Deut.31.10,Deut.31.11"><span class="bibleref" title="Deut.31.10">Deut. 31:10</span>, <span class="bibleref" title="Deut.31.11">11</span></a>), to make it the more solemn. Now, (1.) God would hereby show them that he was their landlord, and that they were tenants at will under him. Landlords are wont to stipulate with their tenants when they shall break up their ground, how long they shall till it, and when they shall let it rest: God would thus give, grant, and convey, that good land to them, under such provisos and limitations as should let them know that they were not proprietors, but dependents on their Lord. (2.) It was a kindness to their land to let it rest sometimes, and would keep it <i>in heart</i> (as our husbandmen express it) for posterity, whose satisfaction God would have them to consult, and not to use the ground as if it were designed only for one age. (3.) When they were thus for a whole year taken off from all country business, they would have the more leisure to attend the exercises of religion, and to get the knowledge of God and his law. (4.) They were hereby taught to be charitable and generous, and not to engross all to themselves, but to be willing that others should share with them in the gifts of God’s bounty, which the earth brought forth of itself. (5.) They were brought to live in a constant dependence upon the divine providence, finding that, as man lives not by bread alone, so he has bread, not by his own industry alone, but, if God pleases, by the word of blessing from the mouth of God, without any care or pains of man, <a class="bibleref" title="Matt.4.4" href="/passage/?search=Matt.4.4">Matt. 4:4</a>. (6.) They were re
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