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Patriarchs and Prophets
commemorative, and given to all mankind. There was nothing in it
shadowy or of restricted application to any people.
God saw that a Sabbath was essential for man, even in Paradise.
He needed to lay aside his own interests and pursuits for one day of
the seven, that he might more fully contemplate the works of God
and meditate upon His power and goodness. He needed a Sabbath to
remind him more vividly of God and to awaken gratitude because all
that he enjoyed and possessed came from the beneficent hand of the
Creator.
God designs that the Sabbath shall direct the minds of men to the
contemplation of His created works. Nature speaks to their senses,
declaring that there is a living God, the Creator, the Supreme Ruler of
all. “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth
His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night
showeth knowledge.”
Psalm 19:1, 2
. The beauty that clothes the earth
is token of God’s love. We may behold it in the everlasting hills, in
the lofty trees, in the opening buds and the delicate flowers. All speak
to us of God. The Sabbath, ever pointing to Him who made them all,
bids men open the great book of nature and trace therein the wisdom,
the power, and the love of the Creator.
Our first parents, though created innocent and holy, were not placed
beyond the possibility of wrongdoing. God made them free moral
agents, capable of appreciating the wisdom and benevolence of His
character and the justice of His requirements, and with full liberty to
yield or to withhold obedience. They were to enjoy communion with
God and with holy angels; but before they could be rendered eternally
secure, their loyalty must be tested. At the very beginning of man’s
existence a check was placed upon the desire for self-indulgence, the
fatal passion that lay at the foundation of Satan’s fall. The tree of
knowledge, which stood near the tree of life in the midst of the garden,
was to be a test of the obedience, faith, and love of our parents. While
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permitted to eat freely of every other tree, they were forbidden to
taste of this, on pain of death. They were also to be exposed to the
temptations of Satan; but if they endured the trial, they would finally
be placed beyond his power, to enjoy perpetual favor with God.
God placed man under law, as an indispensable condition of his
very existence. He was a subject of the divine government, and there
can be no government without law. God might have created man with-