their Idolatrous Feasts But when the true God had no other acknowledgements amongst them but what answered the Title of the Unknown God is it any wonder that his Wayes and Worship might be unknown amongst them also And it is but pretended that they had no Indication of a Sabbatical Rest nor any means to free them from their Ignorance Mans duty is both to be learned and observed in Order It is in vain to expect that any should have Indications of an holy Rest unto God before they are brought to the knowledge of God himself When this is obtained when the true God upon just Grounds is owned and acknowledged than that some time be set apart for his solemn Worship is of Moral and Natural Right That this is included in the very first notion of the true God and our dependance upon him all men do confess And this principle was abused among the Heathen to be the foundation of all their stated Annual or Monthly Sacred Solemnities after they had nefariously lost the only Object of all Religious Worship Where this Progress is made as it might have been by attending to the directive Light of Nature and the impressions of the Law of it left upon the souls of men there will not be wanting sufficient Indicatives of the meetest season for that Worship However these things were and are to be considered and admitted in their Order and with respect unto that Order is their Obligation The Heathen were bound first to know and own the true God and him alone then to worship him solemnly and after that in order of Nature to have some solemn time separated unto the Observance of that Worship Without an Admission of these all which were neglected and rejected by them there is no place to enquire after the Obligation of an Hebdomadal Rest. And their Non-observance of it was their sin not firstly directly and immediately but consequentially as all others are that arise from an Ignorance or Rejection of those greater Principles whereon they do depend § 26 The trivial Exception from the difference of the Meridians is yet pleaded also For hence it is pretended to be impossible that all men should precisely observe the same day For if a man should sail round the world by the East he will at his return home have gotten a day by his continual approach towards the rising Sun And if he steer his course Westward he will lose a day in the annual Revolution as it is gotten the other way so did the Hollanders An. 1615. And hence the posterity of Noah gradually spreading themselves over the world must have gradually come to the Observation of different seasons if we shall suppose a Day of Sacred Rest required of them or appointed to them Apage Nugas If men might sail Eastward or Westward and not continually have seven dayes succeeding one another there would be some force in this Trifle On our Hypothesis where ever men are a seventh part of their Time or a seventh day is to be separated to the Remembrance of the Rest of God and the other Ends of the Sabbath That the Observance of this portion of time shall in all places begin and end at the same Instants the Law and Order of Gods Creation will not permit It is enough that amongst all who can assemble for the Worship of God there is no difference in general but that they all observe the same Proportion of Time And he who by circumnavigation of the world such rare and extraordinary Instances being not to be provided for in a general Law getteth or loseth a day he may at his return with a good conscience give up again what he hath got or retrive what he hath lost with those with whom he fixeth For all such occasional Accidents are to be reduced unto the common Standard All the Difficulty therefore in this Objection relates to the precise Observation of the seventh Day from the Creation and not in the least unto one day in seven And although the seventh day was appointed principally for the Land of Pakstine the seat of the Church of old wherein there was no such Alteration of Meridians yet I doubt not but that a wandring Jew might have observed the foregoing Rule and reduced his Time to order upon his return home What other exceptions of the like nature occur in this cause they shall be removed and satisfied in our next enquiry which is after the Causes of the Sabbath and the Morality of the Observation of one day in seven Exercitatio Tertia 1 Of the Causes of the Sabbath 2 God the Absolute Original Cause of it Distinction of Divine Laws into Moral and Positive 3 Divine Laws of a mixt nature partly Moral partly Positive 4 Opinion of some that the Law of the Sabbath was purely Positive Difficulties of that Opinion 5 Opinion of them who maintain the Observation of one Day in seven to be Moral 6 Opinion of them who make the Observation of the seventh Day precisely to be a Moral Duty 7 The second Opinion asserted 8 The common Notion of the Sabbath explained 9 The true Notion of it farther enquired into 10 Continuation of the same Disquisition 11 The Law of Nature wherein it consists Opinion of the Philosophers 12 Not comprized in the Dictates of Reason No obliging Authority in them formally considered 13 Uncertainty and disagreement about the Dictates of Reason Opinions of the Magi Zeno Chrysippus Plato Archelaus Aristippus Carneades Brennus c. 14 Things may belong to the Law of Nature not discoverable to the common Reason of the most 15 The Law of Nature wherein it doth really consist 16 Light given unto a septenary Sacred Rest in the Law of Nature 17 Farther Instances thereof 18 The Observation of the Sabbath on the same foundation with Monogamy 19 The seventh Day an appendix of the Covenant of Works 20 How far the whole Notion of a Weekly Sacred Rest was of the Law of Nature 21 Natural Light obscured by the Entrance of Sin 22 The summ of what is proposed 23 The enquiry about the Causes of the Sabbath renewed 24 The Command of it in what sense a Law Moral and how evidenced so to be 25 To Worship God in Associations and Assemblies a Moral Duty 26 One Day in seven required unto solemn Worship by the Law of our Creation 27 What is necessary to warrant the Ascription of any Duty to the Law of Creation 28 1. That is be congruous to the known Principles of it 29 2. That it have a general Principle in the Light of Nature 30 3. That it be taught by the Works of Creation 31 4. Direction for its Observance by superadded Revelation no impeachment of it 32 How far the same Duty may be required by a Law Moral and by a Law Positive 33 Vindication of the Truths laid down from an Objection 34 Other Evidences of the Morality of this Duty 35 Required in all states of the Church 36 These
various states 37 Command for the Sabbath before the Fall 38 Before and at the giving of the Law and under the Gospel 39 Whether appointed by the Church 40 Of the fourth Commandment in the Decalogue 41 The proper subject of it 42 The seventh Day precisely not primarily required therein 43 Somewhat moral in it granted by all 44 The matter of this Command a Moral Duty by the Law of Creation 45 The Morality of the Precept it self proved from its interest in the Decalogue by various Instances 46 The Law of the Sabbath only preferred above all Ceremonial and Judicial Laws 47 The Words of our Saviour Matth. 24. 20. considered 48 The whole Law of the Decalogue established by Christ. 49 Objections proposed 50 The first answered 51 The second answered 52 The third answered 53 One Day in seven not the seventh Day precisely required in the Decalogue 54 An Objection from the sense of the Law 55 Answered 56 57 Other Objections answered 58 Col. 2. 16 17. considered The Third Exercitation Causes of the Sabbath § 1 WE have fixed the Original of the Sabbatical Rest according to the best light we have received into these things and confirmed the Reasons of it with the consent of mankind The next step in our progress must be an Enquiry into its Causes And here also we fall immediately into those Difficulties and Entanglements which the various Apprehensions of Learned Men promoted and defended with much Diligence have occasioned I have no Design to oppose or contend with any although a modest Examination of the Reasons of some will be indispensibly necessary unto me All that I crave is the liberty of proposing my own Thoughts and Judgement in this matter with the Reasons and Grounds of them When that is done I shall humbly submit the whole to the Examination and Judgement of all that call upon the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ their Lord and ours § 2 First It is agreed by all that God alone is the Supream Original and Absolute Cause of the Sabbath When ever it began when ever it ends be it expired or still in force of what kind soever were its Institution the Law of it was from God It was from Heaven and not of men and the Will of God is the sole Rule and measure of our Observation of it and Obedience to him therein What may or may not be done in reference unto the Observation of a Day of holy Rest by any inferior Authority comes not here under consideration But whereas there are two sorts of Laws whereby God requires the Obedience of his Rational Creatures which are commonly called Moral and Positive it is greatly questioned and disputed to whether of these sorts doth belong the Command of a Sabbatical Rest. Positive Laws are taken to be such as have no Reason for them in themselves nothing of the matter of them is taken from the things themselves commanded but do depend meerly and solely on the Soveraign Will and Pleasure of God Such were the Laws and Institutions of the Sacrifices of old and such are those which concern the Sacraments and other things of the like nature under the New Testament Moral Laws are such as have the Reasons of them taken from the Nature of the things themselves required in them For they are Good from their respect to the nature of God himself and from that nature and order of all things which he hath placed in the creation So that this sort of Laws is but Declarative of the absolute goodness of what they do require the other is Constitutive of it as unto some certain Ends. Laws Positive as they are occasionally given so they are esteemed alterable at pleasure Being fixed by meer Will and Prerogative without respect to any thing that should make them necessary antecedent to their giving they may by the same Authority at any time be taken away and abolished Such I say are they in their own nature and as to any firmitude that they have from their own subject matter But with respect unto Gods Determination Positive Divine Laws may become eventually unalterable And this Difference is there between Legal and Evangelical Institutions The Laws of both are Positive only equally proceeding from Soveraign Will and Pleasure and in their own Natures equally alterable But to the former God had in his purpose fixed a determinate time and season wherein they should expire or be altered by his Authority the latter he hath fixed a perpetuity and unchangeableness unto during the state and condition of his Church in this world The other sort of Laws are perpetual and unalterable in themselves so far as they are of that sort that is Moral For although a Law of that kind may have an especial Injunction with such circumstances as may be changed and varied as had the whole Decalogue in the Common-wealth of Israel yet so far as it is Moral that is that its Commands or Prohibitions are necessary emergencies or expressions of the Good or Evil of the things it commands or forbids it is invariable And in these things there is an Agreement unless sometimes through mutual Oppositions men are chased into some Exceptions or Distinctions § 3 Unto these two sorts do all Divine Laws belong and unto these Heads they may be all reduced And it is pleaded by some that these kinds of Laws are contradistinct so that a Law of one kind can in no sense be a Law in the other And this doubtless is true reduplicatively because they have especial formal Reasons As far and wherein any Laws are Positive they are not Moral and as far as they are purely Moral they are not formally Positive though given after the manner of positive Commands Howbeit this hinders not but that some do judge that there may be and are Divine Laws of a mixt nature For there may be in a Divine Law a foundation in and respect unto somewhat that is Moral which yet may stand in need of the superaddition of a Positive Command for its due Observation unto its proper End Yea the Moral Reason of things commanded which ariseth out of a due natural Respect unto God and the order of the Universe may be so deep and hidden as that God who would make the Way of his Creatures plain and easie gives out express positive Commands for the Observance of what is antecedently necessary by the Law of our Creation Hence a Law may partake of both these Considerations and both of them have an equal influence into its Obligatory Power And by this means sundry Duties some Moral some Positive are as it were compounded in one Observance as may be instanced in the great Duty of Prayer Hence the whole Law of that Observance becomes of a mixt nature which yet God can separate at his pleasure and taking away that which is Positive leave only that which is absolutely Moral in force And this kind of Laws which have their Foundation in the nature of things
what doth or doth not belong to the Principles and Condition of our Nature so far is it from being comprehensive of the whole Law thereof § 14 When therefore we plead any thing to belong unto or to proceed from the Law of Nature it is no impeachment of our Assertion to say that it doth not appear so to the common Reason of mankind or that right Reason hath not found it out or discovered it provided it contain nothing repugnant thereunto For it will never be universally agreed what doth so appear to the common Reason of all nor what is hath been or may be discovered thereby And although it should be true which some say that Moral and Natural Duties depend on and have their formal Reason from the Nature of God and Man yet it doth not thence follow that we do or may by the sole Light of Nature know what doth so arise with the due bounds and just consequences of it But there is as we shall see something yet farther required in and unto the Law of Nature which is the adequate Rule of all such Duties I shall not therefore endeavour to prove that the meer Dictates of Reason do evince a Sacred Hebdomadal Rest as knowing that the Law of Nature unto which we say it doth belong doth not absolutely consist in them nor did they ever since the Fall steadily and universally as acted in men possessed of Reason either comprehend or express all that belongs thereunto § 15 By the Law of Nature then I intend not a Law which our Nature gives unto all our Actions but a Law given unto our Nature as a Rule and Measure unto our Moral Actions It is Lex naturae Naturantis and not naturae naturatae It respects the Efficient Cause of Nature and not the Effects of it And this respect alone can give it the Nature of a Law that is an obliging Force and Power For this must be alwayes from the Act of a Superior seeing Par in Parem jus non habet equals have no Right one over another This Law therefore is that Rule which God hath given unto humane Nature in all the individual partakers of it for all its Moral Actions in the state and condition wherein it was by him created and placed with Respect unto his own Government of it and Judgement concerning it which Rule is made known in them and to them by their inward constitution and outward condition wherein they were placed of God And the very Heathens acknowledged that the common Law of Mankind was Gods Prescription unto them So Tully 2. de Legib. Hanc video sapientissimorum fuisse sententiam Legem neque hominum ingeniis excogitatam neque scitum aliquod fuisse populorum sed aeternum quiddam quod universum mundum regeret imperandi prohibendique sapientia Ita principem legem illam ultimam mentem dicebant omnia ratione cogentis aut vetantis Dei Take this Law therefore actively and it is the will of God commanding take it passively and it is the conscience of man complying with it take it instrumentally and it is the inbred notions of our minds with other Documents from the works of God proposed unto us The Supreme Original of it as of all Authority Law and Obligation is the Will of God constituting appointing and ordering the nature of things The means of its Revelation is the Effect of the Will Wisdom and Power of God creating man and all other things wherein he is concerned in their Order Place and Condition And the Observation of it as far as individual Persons are therein concerned is committed to the care of the Conscience of every man which natarally is the minds acting it self towards Gods as the Author of this Law § 16 These things being premised we shall consider what Light is given unto this Sacred Duty from the Law of our Creation The first End of any Law is to instruct direct and guide them in their duty unto whom it is given A Law which is not in its own Nature instructive and directive is no way meet to be prescribed unto Rational Creatures What hath an Influence upon any creature of any other kind if it be internal is Instinct and not properly a Law if it be external it is Force and Compulsion The Law therefore of Creation comprized every thing whereby God instructed man in the creation of himself and of the Universe unto his Works or Obedience and his Rest or Reward And whatever tended unto that End belonged unto that Law It is then as hath been proved unduly confined unto the ingrafted Notions of his mind concerning God and his Duty towards him though they are a principal part thereof Whatever was designed to give improvement unto those Notions and his natural Light to excite or direct them I mean in the Works of Nature not superadded positive Institutions doth also belong thereunto Wherefore the whole Instruction that God intended to give unto man by the Works of Creation with their Order and End is as was said included herein What he might learn from them or what God taught him by them was no less his Duty than what his own inbred Light directed him unto Rom. 1. 18 19 20. Thus the framing of the world in six Dayes in six Dayes of Work was intended to be instructive unto man as well as the consideration of the things materially that were made God could have immediately produced All out of Nothing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the shortest measure of Time conceivable But he not only made all things for himself or his glory but disposed also the Order of their Production unto the same End And herein consisted part of that Covenant Instruction which he gave unto man in that condition wherein he was made that through him he might have glory ascribed unto him on the Account of his Works themselves as also of the Order and Manner of their Creation For it is vain to imagine that the world was made in six Dayes and those closed with a Day of Rest without an especial respect unto the Obedience of Rational Creatures seeing absolutely with respect unto God himself neither of them was necessary And what he intended to teach them thereby it was their duty to enquire and know Hereby then man in general was taught Obedience and Working before he entred into Rest. For being created in the Image of God he was to conform himself unto God As God wrought before he rested so was he to work before his Rest his condition rendring that working in him Obedience as it was in God an Effect of Soveraignty And by the Rest of God or his Satisfaction and Complacency in what he had made and done he was instructed to feek Rest with God or to enter into that Rest of God by his complyance with the Ends intended § 17 And whereas the innate Light and Principles of his own mind informed him that some time was to be set apart to the solemn
only so ordered all the works of it that they should be meet to instruct us or contain an Instructive Power towards Rational Creatures made in that state and condition wherein man was created which was before described which hath in it the first notion of a Law but it was the Will of God that we should learn our Duty thereby which gives it its complement as a Law obliging unto Obedience And it is not only thus in general with respect unto the whole work of Creation in it self but the ordering and disposal of the Parts of it is alike directive and Instructive to the Nature of man and hath the force of a Law Morally and everlastingly obligatory Thus the preeminence of the Man above the Woman which is Moral ensues upon the Order of the Creation in that the Man was first made and the Woman for the Man as the Apostle argues 1 Tim. 2. 12 13. And all Nations ought to be obliged hereby though many of them through their Apostasie from Natural Light knew not that either Man or Woman was created but it may be supposed them to have grown out of the Earth like Mushromes and yet an Effect of the secret Original impression hereof influenced their minds and practices So the Creation of one Man and one Woman gave the Natural Law of Marriage whence Polygamy and Fornication became transgressions of the Law of Nature It will be hard to prove that about these and the like things there is a clear and undoubted Principle of Directive Light in the mind of man separate from the consideration of the Order of Creation But therein a Law and that Moral is given unto us not to be referred unto any other Head of Laws but that of Nature And here as was before pleaded the Creation of the world in six dayes with the Rest of God on the seventh and that declared gives unto all men an everlasting Law of separating one day in seven unto a Sacred Rest. For he that was made in the Image of God was made to imitate him and conform himself unto him God in this Order of things saying as it were unto him what I have done in your station do ye likewise Especially was this made effectual by his innate Apprehension that his Happiness consisted in entring into the Rest of God the pledge whereof it was his unquestionable Duty to embrace § 31 4. In this state of things a Direction by a Revelation in the way of a Precept for the due and just exercise of the Principles Rules and Documents before mentioned is so far from impeaching the Morality of any Command or Duty as that it compleats the Law of it with the addition of a formal obligatory Power and Efficacy The Light and Law of Creation so far as it was innate or concreated with the faculties of our souls and compleating our state of Dependance on God hath only the general nature of a Principle inclineing unto actions suitable unto it and directing us therein The Documents also that were originally given unto that Light from without by the other Works and Order of the Creation had only in their own Nature the force of an Instruction The Will of God and an Act of Soveraignty therein formally constituted them a Law But now man being made to live unto God and under his Conduct and Guidance in all things that he might come to the Enjoyment of him no Prejudice ariseth unto nor Alteration is made in the Dictates of the Law of Creation by the superadding any Positive Commands for the Performance of the Duties that it doth require and regulating of them as to the especial Manner and Ends of their Performance And where such a Positive Law is interposed or superadded it is the highest folly to imagine that the whole Obligation unto the Duty depends on that Command as though the Authority of the Law of Nature were superseded thereby or that the whole Command about it were now grown Positive and Arbitrary For although the same Law cannot be Moral and Positive in the same respect yet the same Duty may be required by a Law Moral and a Law Positive It is thus with many Observances of the Gospel We may for Example instance in Excommunication according to the common received notion of it There is a Positive Command in the Gospel for the exercise of the sentence of it in the Churches of Christ. But this hinders not but that it is natural for all Societies of men to exclude from their Societies those that refractorily refuse to observe the Laws and Orders of the Society that it may be preserved unto its proper End And according to the Rule of this Natural Equity that it should be so have all Rational Societies amongst men that knew nothing of the Gospel proceeded for their own good and preservation Neither doth the superadded Institution in the Gospel derogate from the general Reason hereof or change the nature of the Duty but only direct its practice and make Application of it to the uses and ends of the Gospel itself § 32 I do not plead that every Law that God prescribes unto me is Moral because my Obedience unto it is a Moral Duty For the Morality of this Obedience doth not arise from nor depend upon the especial Command of it which it may be is Positive and Arbitrary but from the respect that it hath unto our Dependance in all things which we have to do absolutely and universally on God To obey God in all things is unquestionably our Moral Duty But when the substance of the Command it self that is the Duty required is Moral the addition of a Positive Command doth no way impeach its Morality nor suspend the Influence of that Law whereon its Morality doth depend It is therefore unduly pretended by some that because there is a Positive Command for the Observation of the Sabbath supposing there should be such a Command for the whole of it which is nothing else but an Explanation and Enforcement of the Original Moral Precept of it as in every State of the Church something relating unto it namely the precise Determination of the Day it self in the Hebdomadal Revolution depended on a Law Positive that therefore the Law of it is not Moral It is not so indeed so far and in that respect wherein it is Positive but it is so from it self for the substance of it and Antecedently unto that Positive Command The whole Law therefore of the Sabbath and its Observation may be said to be Moral Positive which Expression hath been used by some Learned Divines in this case and that not unduly For a Law may be said to be so on a double Account First When the Positive Part of the Law is Declarative and accumulative with respect unto a Precedent Law of Nature as when some Additions are made to the Duties therein required as to the manner of their Performance Secondly When the Foundation of a Duty only is laid
in the Law of Nature but its entire Practice is regulated by a Positive Law From all the Instances insisted on it is manifest that the Law of the Sabbatical Observation is Moral a branch of the Law of Nature however it be enforced directed and the especial Day in seven be limited and determined by Positive Commands § 33 These things by many are denyed They will not grant that there is any Rule or Direction in the Law of Creation for a Sacred Rest unto God on one day in seven For they say that no such can be made to appear with that Evidence which the common Anticipations of the minds of men are accompanied withal But this Objection hath been sufficiently obviated by a due stating of the Law of Nature which is not to be confined unto inbred natural Anticipations only And it is certain also that some say the very same concerning the Being of God himself of the Difference between Good and Evil namely that there are no manifest and stedfast Presumptions of them in the mind of man which yet hinders not but that the Acknowledgement of a Divine Being as also the Difference that is between Good and Evil is natural and inseparable from the faculties of our souls Hence Julian in Cyril lib. 5. con Jul. joyns the first and fourth Precept together saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He sayes and swears that all Nations judged that the Commandments of the Decalogue ought to be kept excepting the first forbidding other Gods and the other of remembring the Sabbath to keep it the One may be rejected as well as the other Besides the Law of Nature as to an Obligatory Indication of our Duty is not no not in the Extent insisted on as comprizing the Objective Documents that are in the Works and Order of the Creation to be considered alone by it self in this matter but in conjunction with the Covenant that it was the Rule of For whatever was required of man by vertue of that Covenant was part of the Moral Law of God or belonged unto the Law of his Creation From all which the Rest pleaded for to be Moral doth arise And considering the Nature of this Duty with the Divine Positive Direction whereby its first practice was regulated and stood in need so to be when God blessed the seventh Day and sanctified it And it is marvellous that the remaining Light of Nature about it should put forth it self by so many Intimations as it doth and in so many Instances to express the first impressions that it had from God in this matter For I think we have manifested that they are many and those pleadable against any probability of contradiction In a word we may in all Ages find the generality of mankind feeling and as it were groping in the Dark after a stated Sacred Rest to be observed unto God And however the most of men destitute of Divine Revelation missed the Season the Ends and the Object of this Rest yet they were plainly influenced unto all their stated Sacred or Religious Solemnities both Feasts and Abstinences by the remainders of an innate Perswasion that such a Rest was to be observed Besides we know that the present Indications of Nature as corrupt are no just Rule and Measure of its Original Abilities with respect unto living to God And they do but wofully bewray their Ignorance and Impudence who begin to plead that our Minds or Understandings were no way impaired or worsted by the Fall but that the Principles or Abilities in them in reference unto God and our selves are the same as originally and that unimpaired Either such men design to overthrow the Gospel and Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ or they know not what they say nor whereof they do affirm But hereof we shall treat elsewhere by Gods Assistance At present we know that the Light of Nature is so defective or so impotent in giving Indications of it self that many Nations left destitute of Divine Revelation or wilfully rejecting it have lived and approved themselves in open Transgressions of the Law of it as hath been shewed The Apostle gives sundry Instances of that kind amongst them who most boasted themselves to attend to the Dictates of Right Reason Rom. 1. All Idolaters Polygamists Fornicators and those who constantly lived on Spoil and Rapine approving themselves or not condemning themselves in what they did are Testimonies hereof That alone then is not to be pretended to be of the Law of Nature which all men acknowledge to be a part of it nor is every thing to be rejected from having a place therein which some have lived in a secure transgression of and others say that it gives no Indications of it self but that is to be understood to belong thereunto which by the diligent consideration of all means and advantages of knowledge may be found to be congruous to all the other knwon and allowed Principles and Maximes of it and to have its Foundation in it being what Originally God by any means instructed our Nature in as that which belonged unto our living unto him And it may be a man may sooner learn what is Natural Duty to God in and from corrupted Nature by the Opposition that it will make unto its Practice as it is corrupted than by the Light and Guidance it will give unto it as Nature It is also as we have observed more discernible in its judging and condemning what is done contrary unto it than in directing unto what it did originally require § 34 Having given Evidence unto the Morality of the Sabbath from the Indications of it and Directions unto it in the Light and Law of Nature which will be found to be such as not to be by any modest or sober man contemned we proceed to add those other consequential confirmations of the same Truth which God hath given us in the following Revelations of his Will about it And First this gives no small countenance unto an Apprehension of an unchangeable Morality in the Law of the Sabbath that in all Estates of the Church from the foundation of the world under the several Covenants wherein it hath walked with God and the various Dispensations of them there is a fall Evidence that in them all God hath still required of his people the Observation of a Sacred Rest unto himself in an Hebdomadal Revolution of Time or Dayes A full confirmation hereof with its proofs and illustrations the Reader will find at large in our Exposition of the fourth Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews so soon as God shall give an Opportunity to have it communicated unto him At present I shall touch only on the Heads of things § 35 That any Religious Observance hath been required through all Estates of the Church having no foundation but only in Arbitrary Institution cannot be proved by any one single Instance The Institutions of the State of Innocency in the matters of the Garden with the Trees of Life
or teach men to break any one of them And men make bold with him when they so confidently assert that they may break one of them and teach others so to do without offence That this reacheth not to the confirmation of the seventh Day precisely we shall afterwards abundantly demonstrate In like manner St. James treats concerning the whole Law and all the Commands of it Chap. 2. 10 11. And the Argument he insists on for the Observance of the whole namely the giving of it by the same Authority is confined to the Decalogue and the way of Gods giving the Law thereof or else it may be extended to all Mosaical Institutions expresly contrary to his Intention § 49 It is known that many things are usually objected against the Truth we have been pleading for namely the Morality of a Sacred Rest to God on one Day in seven from its Relation to the Law of Creation and the Command for it in the Decalogue And it is known also that what is so objected hath been by others solidly answered and removed But because those Objections or Arguments have been lately renewed and pressed by a Person of Good Learning and Reputation and a new Reinforcement indeavoured to be given unto them I shall give them a new Examination and remove them out of our way § 50 It is then objected in the first place Disquisit de Moralitate Sabbati p 7. That the Command for the Observation of the Sabbath is a Command of Time or concerning Time only namely that some Certain and Determinate Time be assigned to the Worship of God and this may be granted to be Moral But Time is no part of Moral Worship but only a Circumstance of it even as Place is also Therefore the Command that requires them in particular cannot be Moral For these and the like Circumstances must necessarily be of a Positive Determination § 50 An. 1. The whole force of this Argument consists in this that Time is but an Help Instrument or Circumstance of Worship and therefore is not Moral Worship it self nor a part of Moral Worship nor can so be But this Argument is not valid For whatever God requires by his Command to be religiously observed with immediate respect unto himself is a Part of his Worship And this Worship as to the kind of it follows the Nature of the Law whereby it is commanded If that Law be meerly Positive so is the Worship commanded however it be a Duty required by the Law of Nature that we duly observe it when it is commanded for by the Law of Nature God is to be obeyed in all his Commands of what sort soever they are If that Law be Moral so is the Duty required by it and so is our Obedience unto it The only way then to prove that the Observation of Time is no part of Moral Worship is this namely to manifest that the Law whereby it is required is Positive and not Moral for that it is required by Divine Command of the one sort or the other is now supposed And on the other side from the Consideration of the thing it self naturally as that it is an Adjunct or Circumstance of other things no consequence ariseth to the determination of the Nature of the Law whereby it is required 2. Time abstractedly or one Day in seven absolutely is not the adequate Object of the Precept or the fourth Commandment But it is an Holy Rest to be observed unto God in his Worship on such a Day And this not an Holy Rest unto God in general as the Tendency and End of all our Obedience and living unto him but as an especial Remembrance and Representation of the Rest of God himself with his Complacency and Satisfaction in his Works as establishing a Covenant between himself and us This is the Principal subject of the Command or a stated Day of an Holy Rest unto God in such a Revolution of Dayes or Time This we have proved to be Moral from the Foundation and Reason of it laid and given in the Law of Nature revived and represented in the fourth Command of the Decalogue Now though Place be an inseparable circumstance of all Actions and so capable of being made a circumstance of Divine Worship by Divine Positive Command as it was of old in the Instance of the Temple yet no especial or particular Place had the least Guidance or Direction unto it in the Law of Nature by any Works or Acts of God whose Instructive Vertue belonged thereunto and therefore all Places were alike free by Nature and every Place wherein the Worship of God was celebrated was a natural Circumstance of the Actions performed and not a Religious Circumstance of Worship until a particular Place was assigned and determined by Positive Command for that purpose It is otherwise with Time as hath been shewed at large And therefore although any place notwithstanding any thing in the Law of Nature might have been separated by Positive Institution unto the Solemn Worship of God it doth not thence follow as is pretended that any Time a Day in a Monthly or annual Revolution might have been separated unto the like purpose seeing God had given us Indication of another Limitation of it in the Law of Creation § 51 It is farther objected Disquisit p. 8. That in the fourth Commandment not one Day in seven but the seventh Day precisely is enjoyned The Day was before made known unto the Israelites in the Station at Mara or afterwards at Alesh namely the seventh Day from the foundation of the world This in the Command they are required to observe Hence the words of it are that they should Remember 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that same Sabbath Day or that Day of the Sabbath which was newly revealed unto them This Command therefore cannot be Moral as to the Limitation of Time specified therein seeing it only confirms the Observation of the seventh Day Sabbath which was before given unto the Hebrews in a Temporary Institution And this is insisted on as the principal strength against the Morality of the Command I shall first give you in my Answer in general and then consider the especial improvements that are made of it 1. Instances may be given and have been given by all Writers concerning the Hebrew Tongue wherein the prefixed Letters sometimes answering the Greek Praepositive Articles are redundant and if at all emphatical yet they do not at all limit specifie or determine See Psal. 1. 4. Eccl. 2. 14. Lev. 18. 5. The Observation therefore of prefixing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which may possibly denote an Excellency in the thing it self but tends nothing to the Determination of a certain Day but as it is afterwards declared to be one of seven is too weak to bear the weight of the Inference intended Nor will this be denyed by any whoever aright considered the various use and frequent redundancy of that Praefixe 2. The Sabbath or
of our Reason required of us To understand aright the sense and importance of the Words in Scripture Testimonies the nature of the Propositions and Assertions contained in them the lawful deduction of Inferences from them to judge and determine aright of what is proposed or deduced by just consequence from direct Propositions to compare what in one place seems to be affirmed with what in others seems to be asserted to the same purpose or denyed with other Instances innumerable of the exercise of our minds about the Interpretation of Scripture are all of them Acts of our Reason and as such are managed by us But I must not here farther divert unto the consideration of these things Only I fear that some men write Books about them because they read none This I know that they miserably mistake what is in Controversie and set up to themselves Men of Straw as their Adversaries and then cast Stones at them 3. The Dictates of General and incorrupted Reason suitable unto and explained by Scripture Light is another Principle that we shall in our progress have a due regard unto For whereas it is confessed that the separation of some portion of Time to the Worship of God is a part of the Law of our Creation the Light of Nature doth and must still on that supposition continue to give Testimony unto our Duty therein And although this Light is exceedingly weakned and impaired by sin in the things of the greatest importance and as to many things truly belonging unto it in our original Constitution so overwhelmed with Prejudices and contrary usages that of it self it owns them not at all yet let it be excited quickned rectified by Scripture Light it will return to perform its Office of testifying unto that Dutie a sense whereof and a Direction whereunto were concreated with it We shall therefore enquire what Intimations the Light of Nature hath continued to give concerning a Day of Sacred Rest to be observed unto God and what uncontrollable Testimonies we have of those Intimations in the knowledge confessions and expressions of them in and by those who had no other Way to come to an Acquaintance with them And where there is a common or prevailing Suffrage given amongst mankind unto any Truth and that to free us from entanglements about it declared to be such in the Scripture it must be acknowledged to proceed from that Light of Nature which is common unto all though the actings of it be stifled in many 4. The Custom and Practice of the Church of God in all Ages is to be enquired into I intend not meerly the Church of Christ under the Gospel but the whole Church from the Beginning of the World in the various Dispensations of the Will and Grace of God unto it before the giving of the Law under the Toke of it and since the Promulgation of the Gospel And great weight may certainly be laid upon its Harmonious consent in any practice relating to the Worship of God Nay what may be so confirmed will thence appear not to be an Institution peculiar to any especial Mode of Worship that may belong unto one season and not unto another but to have an everlasting Obligation in it on all that worship God as such never to be altered or dispensed withal And if every particular Church be the Ground and Pillar of Truth whose Testimony thereunto is much to be esteemed how much more is the Universal Church of all Ages so to be accounted And it is a brutish Apprehension to suppose that God would permit a Perswasion to befall the Church in all Ages with respect unto his Worship which was not from himself and the Expression of its Practice accepted with him This therefore is diligently to be enquired into as far as we may have certain light into things involved in so much Darkness as are all things of so great Antiquity 5. A due consideration of the Spirit and Liberty of the Gospel with the Nature of its Worship the Reasons of it and manner of its performance is to be had in this matter No particular Instance of Worship is to be introduced or admitted contrary to the Nature Genius and Reason of the whole If therefore such a Sabbatical Rest or such an Observation of it be urged as is inconsistent with the Principles and Reasons of Evangelical Worship as is built upon Motives not taken from the Gospel and in the manner of its Observance enterferes with the Liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free it discovers it self not to belong unto the present state of the Worshippers of God in Christ. Nor is any thing to commend it self unto us under the meer Notion of strictness or preciseness or the Appearance of more than ordinary severity in Religion It is only walking according unto Rule that will please God justifie us unto others and give us peace in our selves Other seeming Duties that may be recommended because they have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Pretence of Wisdom in doing even more than is required of us through Humility and Mortification are of no price with God nor useful unto men And commonly those who are most ready to overdo in one thing are prone also to underdo in others And this Rule we shall find plainly rejecting the rigid Observation of the Seventh Day as a Sabbath out of the Verge of Gospel Order and Worship 6. The Tendency of Principles Doctrines and Practices to the Promotion or Hinderance of Piety Godliness and Universal Holy Obedience unto God is to be enquired into This is the End of all Religious Worship and of all the Institutions thereof And a due Observation of the regular Tendency of things unto this End will give a great discovery of their Nature and Acceptance with God Let things be urged under never so specious pretences if they be found by Experience not to promote Gospel Holiness in the Hearts and Lives of men they discover themselves not to be of God Much more when Principles and Practices conformable unto them shall be evidenced to obstruct and hinder it to introduce Profaness and countenance Licentiousness of life to prejudice the due Reverence of God and his Worship do they manifest themselves to be of the Tares sowed by the Evil One. And by this Rule we may try the Opinion which denies all Divine Institution unto a Day of holy Rest under the New Testament These are the Principal Rules which in this Disquisition after a Sabbatical Rest we shall attend unto And they are such as will not fail to direct us aright in our course if through Negligence or Prejudice we miss not of a due regard unto them These the Reader is desired to have respect unto in his perusal of the ensuing Discourses and if what is proposed or concluded be not found suitable unto them let it be rejected For I can assure him that no self-assuming no contempt of others no prejudicing Adherence to any Way or Party no
by it unto this end unspeakable Let then this help be supposed and let a Judgement be made of the Injunctions of the Law of Nature rather by its condemning Right and Power than by its Directive Light for that in our lapsed estate is a better 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of its Commands than the other and we shall find it manifesting it self in this matter For on this supposition let those who will not acknowledge that the Observation of one Day in seven is to be separated unto God for the Ends declared allowing the Assertion before laid down of the necessity of the separation of some stated Time to that purpose fixe to themselves any other Time in a certain Revolution of Dayes and they will undoubtedly find themselves pressed with so many Considerations from the Law of their Creation to the contrary as will give them little Rest or satisfaction in their minds in what they do § 27 Farther to manifest this we may enquire what is necessary unto any Duty of Obedience towards God to evince it to be a Requisite of the Law of our Creation And here our Diligence is required For it must be said again expresly what was before intimated that it is a childish mistake to imagine that whatever is required by the Law of Nature is easily discernible and alwayes known to all Some of its Directions it may be are so especially such as are inculcated on the minds of men by their Common Interest and Advantage Such are neminem laedere and jus suum cuique tribuere But it is far from being true that all the Dictates of the Law of Nature and Requisites of Right Reason are evident and incapable of Controversie as they would have been unto man had he continued in his Integrity Many things there are between men themselves concerning which after all helps and advantages and a continued Observation of the course of the world unto this day it is still disputed what is the sense of the Law of Nature about them and wherein or how far they belong unto it The Law of Nations among themselves with respect unto one another on which is founded the Peace and Order of mankind is nothing but the Law of Nature as it hath been expressed in Instances by the Customs and Usages of them who are supposed to have most diligently attended unto its Directions And how many Differences never to be determined by common consent there are in and about these things is known For there are degrees of Evidence in the things that are of Natural Light And many things that are so are yet in Practice accompanied with the consideration of Positive Laws as also of Civil Usages and Customs amongst men And it is not easie to distinguish in many Observances what is of the Law of Nature and what of Law Positive or of useful Custom But of these things we have discoursed before in general We are now to enquire what is requisite to warrant the Ascription of any thing unto this Law § 28 And 1. It is required that it be congruous unto the Law of Nature and all the other known principles of it Unto us it may be enjoyned by Law Positive or otherwise made necessary for us to observe But it must in it self or materially hold a good correspondency with all the known Instances of the Law of our Creation and this manifested with satisfying Evidence before its Assignation thereunto It is of Natural Right that we should obey God in all his Commands but this doth not cause every command of God to belong to the Law of Nature It is as was said moreover required thereunto that it be in it self and the subject matter of it congruous unto the Principles of that Law whereof there is nothing in things meerly arbitrary and positive setting aside that general notion that God is to be obeyed in all his Laws which belongs not to this Question Now when this Congruity unto the Law of Nature or Right Reason in the matter of any Law or Command is discovered and made evident it will greatly direct the mind in its Enquiry after its whole Nature and manifest what is superadded unto it by Positive Command And this will not be denyed unto the Sabbath its Command and Observation Let the Ends of it before laid down be considered and let them be compared with any other Guidances or Directions which we have by Natural Light concerning our living to God and there will not only an Harmony appear amongst them but also that they contribute Help and Assistance to one another towards the same Ultimate End § 29 2. It is required that it have a general Principle in the Light of Nature and Dictates of Right Reason from whence it may be educed or which it will necessarily follow upon supposing that Principle rightly and duly improved It is not enough that it be at Agreement that it no way interfere with other Principles it must also have one of its own from whence it doth naturally arise So doth the second Commandment of the Decalogue belong to the Law of Nature It s Principle lyeth in that Acknowledgement of the Being of God which is required in the first For therein is God manifested to be of that Nature to be such a Being that it is and must be an absurd unreasonable foolish and impious thing in it self implying a renunciation of the former Acknowledgements to make any Images or limited Representations of his Being or to adore him any way otherwise than himself hath declared So is it here also The separation of a stated Time unto the Solemn Worship of God is so fixed on the mind of man by its own inbred Light as that it cannot be omitted without open sin against it in those who have not utterly sinned away all the Efficacy of that Light it self However that this is required of us by the Law of our Creation may be proved against all contradiction Hence whatever guiding directing determining Positive Law may ensue or be superadded about the Limitation of this time so to be separated it being only the Application of this Natural and Moral Principle as to some circumstances of it it hinders not but that the Law if self concerning it is of the Law of Nature and Moral For the Original Power unto Obligation of such a superadded Law lyes in the Natural Principle before mentioned § 30 3. What all men are taught by the Works of Creation themselves their Order Harmony and mutual Respect to each other with reference unto their Duty towards God and among themselves is of the Law of Nature although there be not an absolute distinct notion of it inbred in the mind discoverable It is enough that the mind of man is so disposed as to be ready and fit to receive the Discovery Revelation of it For the very Creation it self is a Law unto us and speaks out that Duty that God requireth of us towards himself For he hath not
manner of that work and labour be varied from what originally it was Likewise in that state of mankind there was to be a superiority of some over others This the natural Relation of Parents and Children makes manifest And these latter were in the Worship of God to be under the Government and Direction of the other And unto this Natural Equity is all subjection to Magistrates in Subjects and Masters in Servants reduced in the fifth Commandment So then the outward variations which are in these things supposed in the fourth Commandment do not in the least impeach its Morality or hinder but that for the substance of it it may be judged a Law Natural and Moral and a true Representation of a part of the Law of our Creation § 3 Seeing therefore that the Moral Law as a Covenant between God and man required this Sacred Rest as we have proved we must enquire what place as such it had in the Mosaical Oeconomy whereon the true Reason and Notion of the Sabbath as peculiarly Judaical doth depend For the Sabbath being originally annexed to the Covenant between God and man the Renovation of the Covenant doth necessarily require an especial Renovation of the Sabbath and the Change of the Covenant as to the nature of it must in like manner introduce a change of the Sabbath And we shall find that the Covenant of the Law or of Works had a twofold Renovation in the Church of Israel in the framing and constitution of it These rendred it their especial Covenant although it was not absolutely a New Covenant nor is it so called but is every where called the Old and hence the Sabbath became peculiarly theirs 1. It was renewed unto them materially It was originally written in the heart of man or concreated with the Faculties of his soul where its Light and Principles being excited guided and variously affected with the consideration of the Works of God proposed unto him with an instructive Ability for that End whose Directions concurred to the making up of the entire Law of Creation was evidently directive unto all the Duties which God in the first Covenant required at our hands By the Entrance of Sin with the corruption and debasing of the Faculties of our souls which ensued thereon whereby the Alteration in our Natures the principal seat and subject of this Law was so great as that we lost the Image of God or that Light and knowledge into our Duty with respect unto him which was necessary for us in that Covenant the Law it self became insufficient a lame and imperfect Guide unto the Ends of the Covenant Besides the Aspectable Creation the outward Medium of instructing man in the knowledge of the Goodness Power and Wisdom of God being for our sin brought under the curse and the creature into bondage the contemplation of it would not so clearly distinctly and perfectly represent him unto us as formerly Let men fancy what they please and please themselves whilst they will with their fancies all things both within and without in the whole Creation were brought into such Disorder and Confusion by the Entrance of sin as that the Law of Nature was utterly insufficient to enable us unto or to guide us in our liveing unto God according to the Tenor of the first Covenant There were and are indeed general Notions of Good and Evil indelibly planted on the faculties of our souls with a power of judging concerning our Actions and Moral Practices whether they are conformable unto those Notions with respect unto the superiour Judgement of God But besides the impairing of the Principles of these Notions before mentioned they were of old variously obscured perverted and stifled by Customs Prejudices and the Power of sin in the world so as that they were of little use as unto a due performance of Covenant Duties indeed of none at all in reference unto any Acceptation with God Wherefore God erecting his Church and renewing the knowledge of himself and mans duty towards him in the Posterity of Abraham he gave unto them afresh in the first place the Precepts of the Law and Covenant of Nature for the Guide and Rule of their Obedience And that this might now be permanent he reduced the substance of the whole Law unto ten Words or Commands writing them in Tables of Stone which he appointed to be sacredly kept amongst them The Law thus declared and written by him was the same I say materially and for the substance of it with the Law of our Creation or the Original Rule of our Covenant Obedience unto God Yet in it as thus transcribed there was an Innovation both in its Form and Principle of Obligation For as to its form or directive power it was now made external and objective unto the mind of man which before was principally internal and subjective And the immediate Obligation unto its Observation among that people was now from the promulgation of it on Mount Sinai and the delivery of it unto them thereon Hence it was prefaced with Motives peculiar to their state and condition and its Observation continually pressed on them afterwards with Arguments taken from their peculiar Relation unto God with his Love and Benefits unto them This gave it a new Respect because there was nothing originally in it nor belonging unto it but what was equally common unto all mankind Now this Alteration in the Law and Covenant of Creation as applyed unto the Church of the Israelites did also affect the Law of the Sabbath which was a part of it It was now no more to them a meer Moral Command only equally regarding all mankind but had a Temporary Respect given unto it which was afterwards to be abolished and taken away So was it with the whole Law and so was it with the Sabbath in particular To take up therefore the Observation of it as appointed in the Decalogue not as a material Transcript of the Law of Nature meerly but as under its Renovation to the Church of Israel is a groundless and unwarrantable going over into a part of abolished Judaisme For § 4 Secondly The Law was renewed as an ingredient into that Oeconomy under which God was pleased to bring his Church at that time before the Exhibition of the Promise or the Accomplishment of it And sundry things are to be observed herein 1. That God did not absolutely bring that people under the Covenant of Works in all the Rigor of it according unto its whole Law and Tenor to stand or fall absolutely by its Promises or Threatnings For although the Law contained the whole Rule of the Covenant and on the considerations to be afterwards mentioned it is often called the Covenant of God with that people yet were they not absolutely tyed up unto it and concluded by it as to the eternal issue of living unto God This arose from the Interposition of the Promise For the Promise of Grace in Christ being given upon the first Entrance of sin
upon the Desires of many now published by it self is but a Part of our remaining Exercitations on that Epistle Nor am I without all hopes but that what shall be declared and proved on this subject may be blessed to an Usefulness unto them who would willingly learn or be established in the Truth An Attempt also will be made herein for the conviction of others who have been seduced into Paths inconsistent with the Communion of Saints the Peace of the Churches of Christ or Opinions hurtful to the Practice of Godliness and left unto the Blessing of him who when he hath supplyed seed to the Sower doth himself also give the encrease And these Considerations have prevailed with me to cast my Mite into this Sanctuary and to endeavour the right stating and confirmation of that Doctrine whereon so important a part of our Duty towards God doth depend as is generally confessed and will be found by Experience that there doth on this concerning a Day of Sacred Rest. § 4 The Controversies about the Sabbath as we call it at present for Distinction sake and to determine a subject of our Discourse which have been publickly agitated are Universal as unto all its concerns Neither Name nor Thing is by all agreed on For whereas most Christians acknowledge we may say all for those by whom it is denyed are of no weight nor scarce of any number that a day on one account or other in an Hebdomadal Revolution of Time is to be set apart to the publick Worship of God yet how that Day is to be called is not agreed amongst them Neither is it granted that it hath any Name affixed unto it by any such means that should cause it justly to be preferred unto any other that men should arbitrarily consent to call it by The Names which have been and amongst some are still in use for its Denotation and Distinction are the seventh Day the Sabbath the Lords Day the first Day of the Week Sunday So was the Day now commonly observed called of Old by the Graecians and Romans before the Introduction of Religion into its Observation And this Name some still retain as a thing indifferent others suppose it were better left unto utter disuse § 5 Those about the Thing it self are various and respect all the concerns of the Day enquired after Nothing that relates unto it no part of its respect to the Worship of God is admitted by all uncontended about For it is debated amongst all sorts of persons 1. Whether any part of Time be naturally and morally to be separated and set apart to the solemn Worship of God or which is the same whether it be a natural and moral Duty to separate any part of time in any Revolution of it unto Divine Service I mean so as it should be stated and fixed in a periodical Revolution otherwise to say that God is solemnly to be worshipped and yet that no time is required thereunto is an open contradiction 2. Whether such a Time supposed be absolutely and originally moral or made so by Positive Command suited unto General Principles and Intimations of Nature And under this consideration also a part of Time is called Moral Metonymically from the Duty of its Observance 3 Whether on supposition of some part of Time so designed the Space or Quantity of it have its Determination or Limitation morally or meerly by Law Positive or Arbitrary For the Observation of some part of Time may be Moral and the quota pars arbitrary 4 Whether every Law Positive of the Old Testament were absolutely Ceremonial or whether there may not be a Law Moral Positive as given to and obligatory of all mankind though not absolutely written in the Heart of man by Nature that is whether there be no morality in any Law but what is a part of the Law of Creation 5 Whether the Institution of the seventh Day Sabbath was from the Beginning of the World and before the Fall of man or whether it were first appointed when the Israelites came into the Wilderness This in itself is only a matter of Fact yet such as whereon the Determination of the Point of Right as to the Universal Obligation unto the Observation of such a Day doth much depend and therefore hath the Investigation and true stating of it been much laboured in and after by Learned men 6 Upon a supposition of the Institution of the Sabbath from the Beginning Whether the Additions made and Observances annexed unto it at the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai with the Ends whereunto it was then designed and the Uses whereunto it was employed gave unto the seventh Day a new State distinct from what it had before although naturally the same day was continued as before For if they did so that new State of the Day seems only to be taken away under the New Testament if not the Day it self seemes to be abolished for that some change is made therein from what was fixed under the Judaical Oeconomy cannot modestly be denyed 7 Whether in the fourth Commandment there be a Foundation of a Distinction between a seventh Day in General or one Day in seven and that seventh Day which was the same numerically and precisely from the Foundation of the World For whereas an Obligation unto the strict Observation of that Day precisely is as we shall prove plainly taken away in the Gospel if the Distinction intimated be not allowed there can be nothing remaining obligatory unto us in that command whilst it is supposed that that Day is at all required therein Hence 8 It is especially enquired whether a seventh Day or one Day in seven or in the Hebdomadal Cycle be to be observed Holy unto the Lord on the Account of the fourth Commandment 9 Whether under the New Testament all Religious Observation of Dayes be so taken away as that there is no Divine Obligation remaining for the Observance of any one Day at all but that as all Dayes are alike in themselves so are they equally free to be disposed of and used by us as Occasion shall require For if the Observation of one Day in seven be not founded in the Law of Nature expressed in the Original Positive Command concerning it and if it be not seated Morally in the fourth Commandment it is certain that the necessary Observance of it is now taken away 10 On the other extream whether the seventh Day from the Creation of the world or the last Day of the Week be to be observed precisely under the New Testament by vertue of the Fourth Commandment and no other The Assertion hereof supposeth that our Lord Jesus Christ the Lord of the Sabbath hath neither changed nor reformed any thing in or about the Religious Observation of an Holy Day of Rest unto the Lord whence it follows that such an Observation can be no Part or Act of Evangelical Worship properly so called but only a Moral Duty of the Law 11 Whether on the
between the upper and inferior sort of creatures so he was divided in his Work and Operations suitably unto the Principles of his Nature and peculiar Constitution For they were partly to be divine and spiritual partly terrene and earthly though under the Government of the Soveraign Divine Principle in him Hence it was required that in this condition being not absolutely fitted as the Angels for constant contemplation that he should work and labour in the earth whilst he continued in it and his Terrene part not refined or made Spiritual and Heavenly This made a certain Time of Rest necessary unto him and that upon a double Account flowing from the Principles of his own Nature For his Earthly Constitution could not alwayes hold out to labour with its own satisfaction and his Intellectual and divine part was not to be alwayes diverted but to be furthered in and unto its own peculiar Operations This made a Sacred Rest necessary to him And in that Addition of sweat and travail which befell him in his labour afterwards That was not a new course of life enjoyned him but a Curse was mixed with that course and labour which was originally allotted unto him So then although there is a different manner of working more necessary and supposed in the giving of the Law then was at the first Institution of a Sabbatical Rest yet the change is not in the Law or Command for labour but in the state or condition of man himself The same may be spoken concerning the Addition about Servants and Handmaids For in the State of Innocency there would have been a superiority of some over others in that Government which is Oeconomical or Paternal Hence all Duties of persons in subordination are built on the Law of Nature and what is not resolved thereinto is Force and Violence And herein lyes the Foundation of what is ordained with Reference unto Servants and Strangers which is expressed in the fourth Commandment with an especial Application to the State of the Judaical Church and People Wherefore although there should have been no such Servants or Strangers as are intended in the Decalogue in the state of Innocency when we plead that the Law of the Sabbath was first given yet this proves no more but that this Precept in the Renovation and Repetition of it unto the Jews was accommodated to the present state of things amongst them that state being such as had its Foundation in the Law of Creation it self The places adjoyned of Exod. 16. 29. Chap. 31. 17. Ezek. 20. 12. do prove sufficiently and undeniably that in the Mosaical Paedagogie the Observation of the seventh day being precisely injoyned there were Additions of signification given unto it that is to the seventh day precisely by Divine Institution as amongst them it was to be observed And therefore unto the utmost extent of the Determination of the Day of Rest unto the seventh day precisely and all the significancy annexed unto it to that people we acknowledge that the Sabbath was absolutely commensurate to the Church State of the Jews beginning and ending with it But the Argument hence educed namely that God gave the Sabbath that is the Law of it in a peculiar manner unto the Jews therefore he had not given the same Law for the substance of it before unto all mankind is infirm For God gave the whole Law to the Jews in an especial manner and enforced the Observation of it with a Reason or Motive peculiar to them namely I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the Land of Aegypt out of the house of bondage and yet this Law was before given unto them who never were in Aegypt nor never thence delivered And upon the account of this peculiar Appropriation of the Law unto the Jews it is spoken of in the Scripture in places innumerable as if it had been given unto them only and to no others at all So speaks the Psalmist Psal. 141. 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 declaring his Words unto Jacob his Statutes and Judgements unto Israel Where only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Ceremonial and Judicial Laws are intended so by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Words and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the ten Words as Moses calls the Decalogue And of them all the Psalmist adds v. 20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he hath not done so unto any Nation namely not in the same manner for none will deny but that nine Precepts at least were given unto all mankind in Adam § 19 It is added by the same Learned Author Praeterea p. 51. si quies scptimi diei omnibus ab origine mundi hominibus injuncta fuisset non autem solis Israelitis à Tempore Mosis deus non solum Israelitas ob neglectum illius praecepti sed Gentiles semel saltem eadem de causa reprehendisset Cum vero Israelitas ea de causa reprehendat saepissime Gentiles tamen nuspiam reprehendere hoc nomine legitur qui propter peccata in legem naturalem commissa toties tam acriter à Deo reprehenduntur Luculentum ejus rei exemplum est Nehem. 13. Tyrii asserunt Hierosolymas omnes res venales quas vendebant ipso Sabbato Judaeis quidem Hierosolymis v. 16. Non tamen Nehemias peccati violati Sabbati reos arguit Tyrios sed Judaeos v. 17. Tyrios autem clausis portis pridie Sabbati à vespera usque urbem excludit ita compeseit tandem à muris urbis abigit v. 19 20 21. Si vero Tyrii hi una cum Judaeis lege Sabbati Communi praecepto fuissent obstricti nunne à viro sanctissimo ejus peccati nomine quoque reprehensi fuissent quod tamen factum non apparet Quum praeterea Scriptura impia Gentilium festa graviter reprehendat an sancti Sabbati neglectum si id quoque ipsis observandum fuisset tam constanti silentio dissimulasset The force of this Argument consists in this Assertion that whatever we find God did not reprove in the Gentiles therein they did not sin nor had they any Law given unto them concerning it 〈◊〉 not in Adam which will by no means be granted For 1. The Times are spoken of wherein God suffered them to walk in their own wayes and wincked at their Ignorance Hence as he gave them no Reproofs for their sins by his revealed Word so those which he gave them by his Providence are not recorded We may not therefore say they sinned in nothing but what we find them reproved for in particular 2. Other Instances may be given of sins against the Light of Nature among the Gentiles and that in things belonging to the second Table wherein that Light hath a greater Evidence accompanying it than in that of the first the first Precept only excepted which yet we find them not rebuked for Such were the sins of Concubinacy and Fornication 3. After the Renovation or giving of this
Command unto the Jews it was the Duty of the Nations to whom the knowledge thereof did come to take up the Observation of it For it was doubtless their Duty to joyn themselves to God and his people and with them to observe his Statutes and Judgements and their not so doing was their sin which as is pretended they were not reproved for or God was not displeased with them on that account 4. The Publication of Gods Commands is to be stated from his giving of them and not from the Instances of mens transgressing of them Nor is it any Rule that a Law is then first given when mens sins against it are first reproved For the Instance insisted on of Nehemiah and the Tyrians with his different dealing with them and the Jews about the breach of the Law of the Sabbath Chap. 13. it is of no force in this matter For when the Tyrians knew the Command of the Sabbath among the Jews which was a sufficient Revelation of the Will of God concerning his Worship it was their Duty to observe it I do not say that it was their Duty immediately and abiding in their Gentilisme to observe the Sabbath according to the Institution it had among the Jews but it was their Duty to know own and obey the true God and to joyn themselves to his people to do and observe all his commands If this was not their Duty upon that Discovery and Revelation which those had of the Will of God who came up to Jerusalem as they did concerning whom we speak then was it not their sin to abide in their Gentilisme which I suppose will not be asserted It was therefore on one Account or other a sin in the Tyrians to prophane the Sabbath It will be said why then did not Nehemiah reprove them as well as he did the Jews The Answer is easie He was the Head and Governour of the State and Polity of the Jews unto whom it belonged to see that things amongst them were observed and done according to Gods Law and Appointment And this he was to do with Authority having the warrant of God for it With the Tyrians he had nothing to do no care of them no Jurisdiction over them no entercourse with them but according to the Law of Nations On these accounts he charged not them with sin or a Moral Evil which they would not have regarded having no regard to the true God much less to his Worship but he threatned them with War and Punishment for disturbing his Government of the people according to the Law of God It is well observed that God reproved the Profane Feasts of the Heathens and therein unquestionably the neglect of them that were of his own Appointment For this is the Nature and Method of Negative Precepts and condemnatory sentences in Divine things that they assert what is contrary to that which is forbidden and recommend that which is opposite unto what is condemned Thus the Worship of God according to his own Institution is commanded in the prohibition of making to our selves or finding out wayes of Religious Worship and Honour of our own For whereas it is a prime Dictate of the Law of Nature that God is to be worshipped according to his own Appointment which was from the Light of it acknowledged among the Heathen themselves it is not any where asserted or intimated in the Decalogical Compendium of it unless it be in that prohibition It sufficeth then that even among the Gentiles God vindicated the Authority of his own Sabbaths by condemning their impious Feasts and abominable Practices in them § 20 By the same Learned Writer p. 52. The Testimony of the Jews in this case is pleaded They generally assirm that the Sabbath was given unto them only and not to the rest of the Nations Hence it is by them called the Bride of the Synagogue Nor do they reckon the command of it amongst the Noachical Precepts which they esteem all men obliged unto and whose Observation they imposed on the Proselytes of the Gate or the uncircumcised strangers that lived amongst them Nay they say that others were liable to punishment if they did observe it For that part of the command nor the stranger that is within thy Gate they say intends no more but that no Israelite should compell him to work or make any advantage of his Labour but for himself he was not bound to abstain from labour but might exercise himself therein at his own discretion for his advantage These things are pleaded at large and confirmed with many Testimonies and Instances by the Learned Selden and from him are they again by others insisted on But the Truth is there is not any thing of force in the conceits of these Talmudical Jews in the least to weaken the principle we have laid down and established For 1. As hath been shewed this Opinion is not indeed Catholick amongst them but many and those of the most Learned of the Masters do oppose it as we have proved already And others may be added to them whose Opinion although it be peculiar yet it wanteth not a fair probability of Truth For they say that the first part of the Precept Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy hath respect to the glorifying of God on the account of his Original Work and Rest. This therefore belongs unto all mankind But as for that which follows about the six dayes labour and the seventh dayes cessation or quiet it had respect unto the Bondage of the Israelites in Aegypt and their deliverance thence and was therefore peculiar unto them So R. Ephraim in Keli Jacar And hence it may be the Word Remember hath respect unto the Command of the Sabbath from the Foundation of the world And therefore when the Command is repeated again with peculiar respect to the Church of Israel as the Motive from the Aegyptian Bondage and deliverance is expressed so the Caution of Remembring is omitted Deut. 5. 12. and transferred to this other occasion Remember that thou wast a servant v. 15. 2. The sole Foundation of it is laid in a corrupt and false Tradition or conceit of the giving of the Law of the Sabbath in Mara which we have before disproved and which is despised as vain and foolish by most Learned men 3. The Assertors of this Opinion do wofully contradict themselves in that they generally acknowledge that the Sabbath was observed by Abraham and other Patriarchs as it should seem at least four hundred years before its Institution 4. It is none of the seven called Noachical Precepts for they contain not the whole Law of Nature or Precepts of the Decalogue and one of them is Ceremonial in their sense so that nothing can thence be concluded against the Original or Nature of this Law 5. That an uncircumcised stranger was liable to punishment if he observed the Sabbath is a foolish imagination not inferiour unto that of some others of them who affirm that all the
Gentiles shall keep the Sabbath one day in seven in Hell 6. For the Distinction which they have invented that a Proselyte of the Gate might work for himself but not for his Master it is one of the many whereby they make void the Law of God through their Traditions Those who of old amongst them feared God knowing their Duty to instruct their Housholds or Families that is their Children and Servants in the Wayes and Worship of God walked by another Rule § 21 It is farther pleaded by the same Author p. 53. That the Gentiles knew nothing of this Sabbatical Feast but that when it came to their knowledge they derided and exploded it as a particular Superstition of the Jews To this purpose many Instances out of the Historians and Poets who wrote in the time of the first Roman Emperors are collected by Selden which we are again directed unto Now it could not be but that if it had been originally appointed unto all mankind that they should have been such strangers unto it But this matter hath been discoursed before And we have shewed that sundry of the first Writers of the Christian Church were otherwise minded for they judged and proved that there was a Notion at least of the seventh Dayes Sacred Rest diffused throughout the world And they lived nearer the times of the Gentiles Practice than those by whom their Judgement and Testimony are so peremptorily rejected It is not unlikely but that they might be mistaken in some of the Testimonies whereby they confirm their Observation yet this hinders not but that the Observation it self may be true and sufficiently confirmed by other Instances which they make use of For my part as I have said I will not nor for the security of the Principle laid down need I to contend that the seventh Day was observed as a sacred feast amongst them It is enough that there were such Notices of it in the World as could proceed from no other Original but that pleaded for which was common unto all The Roman Writers Poets and others do speak of and contemn the Judaical Sabbaths under which Name they comprehended all their Sacred Feasts and Solemn Abstinencies Hence they reproached them with their Sabbatical Fasts of which number the seventh day Hebdomadal Sabbath was not But they never endeavoured to come to any real Acquaintance with their Religious Rites but took up vulgar Reports concerning them as did their Historians also who in the Affairs of other Natitions are supposed to have been curious and diligent § 22 Indeed after the Conquest of Jerusalem by Pompey when the People of the Jews began to be known among the Romans and to disperse themselves throughout their Provinces they began every day more and more to hate them and to cast all manner of reproaches on them without regard to Truth or Honesty And it may not be amiss here a little by the way to enquire into the Reasons of it The principal cause hereof no doubt was from the God they worshipped and the manner of his Worship observed amongst them For finding them to acknowledge and adore one only the true God and that without the use of any kind of Images they perceived their own Idolatry and Superstition to be condemned thereby And this had been the condition of that people under the former Empires of the Chaldaeáns Persians and Grecians God had appointed them to be his Witnesses in the world that he was God and that there was none other Isa. 44. 8 9 10. Ye are my Witnesses is there a God besides me there is no God I know not any As also Chap. 43. 10 11 12. Ye are my Witnesses that before me there was no God formed neither shall there be any after me I even I am the Lord and besides me there is no Saviour therefore ye are my Witnesses saith the Lord that I am God This greatly provoked as other Nations of old so at length the Romans as bidding defiance to all their Gods and their Worship of them wherein they greatly boasted For they thought that it was meerly by the Help of their Gods and on the account of their Religion that they conquered all other Nations So Ciccro Orat. de Respon Harusp Quam volumus ipsi nos amemus tamen nec numero Hispanos nec robore Gallos nec calliditate Poenos nec artibus Graecos sed pietate religione atque hac una sapientia quod deorum immortalium numine omnia regi gubernarique prospeximus omnes gentes nationesque superavimus Let us love and please ourselves as we think meet yet we outgo neither the Spaniards in number nor the Gaules in strength nor the Africans in craft nor the Grecians in Arts but it is by our Piety and Religion and this only Wisdom that we refer all to the Government of the immortal Gods that we have overcome all Countreys and Nations And Dionysius Halicarnassaeus Antiquit. Rom. lib. 2. having given an account of their Sacred Rites and Worship adds that he did it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That those who knew not before the Piety or Religion of the Romans might not now think it strange that they should have such success in all their Wars To be judged and condemned in those things by the contrary witness of the Jews they could not bear This made them reflect on God himself as the God which they worshipped They called him incertum and ignotum affirming the Rites of his Worship to be absurd and contrary to the common consent of mankind as Tacitus expresly Hist. lib. 5. The best they could afford when they spake of him was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who ever he be And Tully will not allow that it was any respect to their God or their Religion which caused Pompey to forbear spoiling the Temple when he took it by force Non credo saith he religionem impedimento praestantissimo Imperatori fuisse quod victor ex illo fano nihil attigerit Orat. pro Flacc. whereunto he adds as high a Reproach of them and their Religion as he could devise Stantibus Hierosolymis pacatisque Judaeis tamen istorum religio sacrorum à splendore hujus imperii gravitate nominis nostri majorum institutis abhorrebat nunc vero hoc magis quod illa gens quid de nostro imperio sentiret ostendit armis quam cara diis immortalibus esset docuit quod victa est quod clocata quod servata Whilst Jerusalem stood that is in its own Power and the Jews were peaceable yet their Religion was unworthy the splendor of this Empire the gravity of our Name and abhorrent from the Ordinances of our Ancestors how much more now when that Nation hath shewed what esteem it hath of our Empire by its Arms and how dear it is to the immortal Gods that it is conquered and set out under Tribute The like Reflections yea worse may be seen in Trogus Tacitus Plutarcb Strabo and Democritus in Suidas with others §
themselves which yet stand in need of farther Direction for their due Observation which is added unto them by Positive Institution some call Moral Positive § 4 According to these Distinctions of the Nature of the Laws which God expresseth his Will in and by are mens Apprehensions different about the immediate and instrumental Cause of the Sabbatical Rest. That God was the Author of it is as was said by all agreed But say some the Law whereby he appointed it was purely Positive the matter of it being arbitrary stated and determined only in the Command it self and so the whole Nature of the Law and that commanded in it changeable And because Positive Laws did and alwayes do respect some other things besides and beyond themselves it is pleaded that this Law was Ceremonial and Typical that is it was an Institution of an outward present Religious Observation to signifie and represent some thing not present nor yet come such were all the particulars of the whole systeme of Mosaical Worship whereof this Law of the Sabbath was a part and an Instance In brief some say that the whole Law of the Sabbath was as to its general Nature positive and arbitrary and so changeable and in particular Ceremonial and Typical and so actually changed and abolished But yet it is so fallen out that those who are most positive in these Assertions cannot but acknowledge that this Law is so ingrafted into and so closed up with somewhat that is Moral and unalterable that it is no easie thing to hit the joint aright and make a separation of the one from the other But concerning any other Law expresly and confessedly Ceremonial no such thing can be observed They were all evidently and entirely arbitrary Institutions without any such neer Relation to what is Moral as might trouble any one to make a distinction between them For Instance the Law of Sacrifices hath indeed an answerableness in it to a great Principle of the Law of Nature namely that we must honour God with our substance and the best of our Increase yet that this might be done many other wayes and not by Sacrifice if God had pleased so to ordain every one is able to apprehend It is otherwise in this matter for none will deny but that it is required of us in and by the Law of Nature that some Time be set apart and dedicated unto God for the Observation of his solemn Worship in the world And it is plain to every one that this natural dictate is inseparably included in the Law of the Sabbath It will therefore surely be difficult to make it absolutely and universally positive I know some begin to whisper things inconsistent with this concession But we have as yet the Universal consent of all Divines Antient and Modern Fathers Schoolmen and Casuists concurring in this matter For they all unanimously affirm that the separation of some part of our Time to sacred uses and the solemn honouring of God is required of us in the Light and by the Law of Nature And herein lyes the fundamental notion of the Law now enquired after This also may be farther added that whereas this Natural dictate for the observation of some time in the solemn worship of God hath been accompanied with a Declaration of his will from the foundation of the world that this Time should be one day in seven it will be a matter of no small Difficulty to find out what is purely positive therein § 5 Others building on this Foundation that the Dedication of some part of our Time to the Worship of God is a duty Natural or Moral as required by the Law of our Creation not that Time in it self which is but a circumstance of other things can be esteemed Moral but that our observation of Time may be a Moral Duty do add that the Determination of one Day in seven to be that portion of Time so to be dedicated is inseparable from the same foundation and is of the same Nature with it That is that the Sabbatical Observation of one Dayes Holy Rest in seven hath a Moral Precept for its Warranty or that which hath the nature of a Moral Precept in it so that although the Revolution of Time in seven Dayes and the confining of the Day to that determined season do depend on Revelation and a Fositive Command of God for its Observance yet on fupposition thereof the Moral Precept prevails in the whole and is everlastingly Obligatory And there are some Divines of great Piety and Learning who do judge that a Command of God given unto all men and equally Obligatory unto all respecting their manner of living unto God is to be esteemed a Moral Command and that indispensible and unchangeable although we should not be able to discover the Reason of it in the Light and Law of Nature Nor can such a Command be reckoned amongst them that are meerly positive arbitrary and changeable all which depend on sundry other things and do not firstly affect men as men in general And it is probable that God would not give out any such Catholick Command which comprized not somewhat naturally Good and Right in it And this is the best measure and Determination of what is Moral and not our Ability of discovering by Reason what is so and what is not as we shall see afterwards § 6 Moreover there are some who stay not here but contend that the precise Observation of the seventh Day in the Hebdomadal Revolution lyeth under a Command Moral and indispensible For God they say who is the Soveraign Lord of us and our Times hath taken by an Everlasting Law this Day unto himself for his honour and service And he hath therein obliged all men to an holy Rest not on some certain fixed and stated time not on one Day in seven originally as the first Intention of his Command but on the seventh Day precisely whereunto those other considerations of some stated and fixed time and of one Day in seven are Consequential and far from previous foundations of it The seventh Day as the seventh Day is they say the first proper Object of the Command the other things mentioned of a stated Time and of one Day in seven do only follow thereon and by vertue thereof belong to the Command of the Sabbath and no otherwise Herein great Honour indeed is done unto the seventh Day above all other Ordinances of Worship whatever even of the Gospel it self but whether with sufficient Warranty we must afterwards enquire At present I shall only observe that this Observation of the seventh Day precisely is resolved into the Soveraignty of God over us and our Times and into an Occasion respecting purely the Covenant of Works on which bottoms it is hard to fix it in an absolute unvariable station § 7 It is the second Opinion for the substance of it which I shall indeavour to explain and confirm and therein prove a Sacred Sabbatical Rest unto God
Worship of God as he was a rational creature made to give glory unto him so the Instruction he received by the Works and Rest of God as made under a Covenant taught him that one day in seven was required unto that purpose as also to be a pledge of his resting with God It may be it will be said that man could not know that the world was made in six dayes and that the Rest of God ensued on the seventh without some especial Revelation I answer 1. That I know not He that knew the nature of all the creatures and could give them names suited thereunto upon his first sight and view of them might know more of the Order of their creation than we can well imagine For we know no more in our lapsed condition what the Light of Nature directed man unto as walking before God in a Covenant than men meerly natural do know of the Guidance and Conduct of the Light and Law of Grace in them who are taken into a New Covenant 2. However what God instructed him in even by Revelation as to the due Consideration and improvement of the things that belonged unto the Law of his Creation that is to be esteemed as a part thereof Institutions of things by especial Revelation that had no Foundatiin the Law or Light of Nature were meerly positive such were the Commands concerning the Trees of Life and of the knowledge of Good and Evil. But such as were directive of Natural Light and of the Order of the Creation were Moral and belonged unto the general Law of Obedience Such was the especial Command given unto man to till and keep the Garden Gen. 2. 15. or to dress and improve the place of his Habitation For this in General the Law of his Creation required Now this God did both as to his Works and his Rest. Neither do I know any one as yet that questioneth whither Adam and the Patriarchs that ensued before the giving of the Law knew that the world was created in six dayes Though some seem to speak doubtfully hereof and some by direct consequent deny it yet I suppose that hitherto it passeth as granted Nor have they who dispute that the Sabbath was neither instituted known nor observed before the people of Israel were in the Wilderness once attempted to confirm their Opinion with this supposition that the Patriarchs from the Foundation of the world knew not that the world was made in six dayes which yet alone would be effectual unto their purpose Nor on the other side can it be once rationally imagined that if they had knowledge hereof and therewithal of the Rest which ensued thereon that they had no regard unto it in the Worship of God § 18 And thus was the Sabbath or the Observation of one day in seven as a Sacred Rest fixed on the same Moral grounds with Monogamy or the marriage of one man to one only Woman at the same time which from the very fact and Order of the Creation our Saviour proves to have been an unchangeable part of the Law of it For because God made them two single Persons Male and Female fit for individual conjunction he concludes that this course of life they were everlastingly obliged not to alter nor transgress As therefore men may dispute that Polygamy is not against the Law of Nature because it was allowed and practised by many by most of those who of old observed and improved the Light and Rule thereof to the uttermost when yet the very factum and Order of the Creation is sufficient to evince the contrary so although men should dispute that the Observation of one Dayes Sacred Rest in seven is not of the Light nor Law of Nature all whose Rules and Dictates they say are of an easie discovery and prone to the Observation of all men which this is not yet the Order of the Creation and the Rest of God that ensued thereon is sufficient to evince the contrary And in the renewing of the Law upon Mount Sinai God taught the people not only by the words that he spake but also by the Works that he wrought Yea he instructed them in a Moral Duty not only by what he did but by what he did not For he declares that they ought to make no Images of or unto him because he made no Representation of himself unto them they saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto them in Horeb out of the midst of the fire Deut. 4. 15 16. § 19 But now to shut up this Discourse whereas the Covenant which man Originally was taken into was a Covenant of Works wherein his obtaining Rest with God depended absolutely on his doing all the Work he had to do in a way of Legal Obedience he was during the Dispensation of that Covenant tyed up precisely to the Observation of the seventh Day or that which followed the whole Work of Creation And the seventh Day as such is a Pledge and Token of the Rest promised in the Covenant of Works and no other And those who would advance that Day again into a necessary Observation do consequentially introduce the whole Covenant of Works and are become Debtors unto the whole Law For the works of God which preceded the seventh Day precisely were those whereby man was initiated into and instructed in the Covenant of Works and the Day it self was a token and pledge of the Righteousness thereof or a Moral and Natural Sign of it and of the Rest of God therein and the Rest of man with God thereby And it is no service to the Church of God nor hath any tendency unto the Honor of Christ in the Gospel to endeavour a Reduction of us unto the Covenant of Nature § 20 Thus was Man instructed in the whole Notion of a Weekly Sacred Rest by all the Wayes and Means which God was pleased to use in giving him an acquaintance with his Will and that Obedience unto his Glory which he expected from him For this knowledge he had partly by the Law of his Creation as innate unto him or concreated with the Principles of his nature being the necessary exurgency of his Rational Constitution and partly by the Works and Rest of God thereon proposed unto his consideration both firmed by Gods Declaration of his Sanctification of the seventh Day Hence did he know that it was his Duty to express and celebrate the Rest of God or the complacency that he had in the Works of his Hands in reference unto their great and proper End or his Glory in the Honour Praise and Obedience of them unto whose contemplation they were proposed for those Ends. This followed immediately from the Time spent in the Creation and the Rest that ensued thereon which were so ordered for his Instruction and not from any other Cause or Reason taken either from the Nature of God or of the things themselves which required neither six dayes to make the world in
nor any Rest to follow thereon For that Rest was not a cessation from working absolutely much less meerly so Hence did he learn the Nature of the Covenant that he was taken into namely how he was first to work in Obedience and then to enter into Gods Rest in Blessedness For so had God appointed and so did he understand his Will from his own present State and Condition Hence was he instructed to dedicate to God and his own more immediate communion with him one day in a Weekly Revolution wherein the whole Law of his Creation was consummate as a Pledge and Means of entring eternally into Gods Rest which from hence he understood to be his End and Happiness And for the sanctification of the seventh Day of the Week precisely he had it by Revelation or Gods sanctification of it which had unto him the nature of a Positive Law being a Determination of the day suited unto the Nature and Tenour of that Covenant wherein he walked with God § 21 And by this superadded Command or Institution the mind of man was confirmed in the meaning and intention of his innate Principles and other Instructions to the same purpose in general All these things I say the last only excepted was he directed unto in and by the innate Principles of Light and Obedience wherewith the Faculties of his soul were furnished every way suited to guide him in the whole of the Duty required of him and by the farther Instruction he had from the other Works of God and his Rest upon the whole And although it may be we cannot now discern how in particular his Natural Light might conduct and guide him to the Observance of all these things yet ought we not therefore to deny that so it did seeing there is evidence in the things themselves and we know not well what that Light was which was in him For although we may have some due Apprehensions of the substance of it from its remaining Ruines and Materials in our lapsed condition yet we have no acquaintance with that Light and glorious Lustre that extent of its directive beams which it was accompanied withal when it was in him as he came immediately from the hand of God created in his Image We have lost more by the Fall than the best and wisest in the world can apprehend whilst they are in it much more than most will acknowledge whose principal design seems to be to extenuate the sin and misery of man which issueth necessarily in an undervaluation of the Love and Grace of Jesus Christ. But if a natural or carnal man cannot discern how the Spirit or Grace of the New Covenant which succeeds into the room of our first innate Light as unto the Ends of our living unto Gods glory in a new way directs and guides those in whom it is unto the Observance of all the Duties of it let us not wonder if we cannot easily and readily comprehend the Brightness and Extent and Conduct of that Light which was suited unto an estate of things that never was in the world since the Fall but only in the Man Christ Jesus whose Wisdom and Knowledge in the Mind and Will of God even thereby without his superadded peculiar Assistances we may rather admire than think to understand § 22 Thus then were the Foundations of the Old World laid and the Covenant of mans Obedience established when all the Sons of God sang for joy even in the first Rest of God and in the expression of it by the sanctification of a Sacred Rest to return unto him a Revenue of Glory in mans Observance of it And on these grounds I do affirm that the Weekly Observation of a Day to God for Sabbath Ends is a Duty Natural and Moral which we are under a perpetual indispensible Obligation unto namely from that Command of God which being a part of the Law of our Creation is Moral indispensible perpetual And these things with the different Apprehensions of others about them and Oppositions unto them must now be farther explained and considered For that we now enter upon namely the consideration of the Judgement and Opinions of others about these things with the Confirmation of our own § 23 In the Enquiry after the Causes of the Sabbath the first Question usually insisted on is concerning the Nature of the Law whereby its Observation is commanded This some affirm to be Moral some only Positive as we have shewed before And many Disputes there have been about the true Notion and Distinction of Laws Moral and Positive But whereas these Terms are invented to express the conceptions of mens minds and that of Moral at least includes not any absolute determinate sense in the meaning of the Word those at variance about them cannot impose their sense and understanding of them upon one another For seeing this Denomination of Moral applyed unto a Law is taken from the subject matter of it which is the Manners or Duties of them to whom the Law is given if any one will assert that every command of God which respects the manners of men that is of all men absolutely as men is Moral I know not how any one can compel him to speak or think otherwise for he hath his liberty to use the Word in that sense which he judgeth most proper And if it can be proved that there is a Law and ever was binding all men universally to the Observation of an Hebdomadal Sacred Rest I shall not contend with any how that Law ought to be called whether Moral or Positive This contest therefore I shall not engage into though I have used and shall yet further use those terms in their common sense and acceptation My way shall be plainly to enquire what force there is in the Law of our Creation unto the Observation of a Weekly Sabbath and what is superadded thereunto by the Vocal Declararion of the Will of God concerning it § 24 And here in the first place it is generally agreed so that the Opposition unto it is not considerable nor any way deserving our notice that in and by the Light of Nature or the Law of our Creation some Time ought to be separated unto the Obserservance of the solemn Worship of God For be that Worship what it will meerly Natural or any thing superadded by voluntary and arbitrary Institutions the Law for its Observance is natural and requires that Time be set apart for its Celebration seeing in time it is to be performed When there was but one Man and Woman this was their Duty and so it continued to be the Duty of their whole Race and Posterity in all the Societies Associations and Assemblies whereof they were capable But the first Object of this Law or Command is the Worship of God it self Time falls under it only consequentially and reductively Wherefore the Law of Nature doth also distinctly respect Time it self For we are bound thereby to serve God with all that
is now earnestly pleaded that it consisted in meer Bodily Rest which is scarcely to be reckoned as any part of Divine Service at all What is farther in it is said to be only a meer Circumstance of Time not in any thing better than that of Place which had an Arbitrary Determination also for a season It cannot therefore be thus exalted and preferred above all other Ordinances of Worship upon the account of its service seeing it is apprehended to be only a meer Adjunct of other services which were therefore more worthy than it as every thing which is for it self is more worthy than that which is only for another And take it absolutely Place is a more Noble Circumstance than Time in this Case considering that Place being determined by an Arbitrary Institution in the building of the Temple became the most glorious and significant part of Divine Worship yet had it no place in the Decalogue but only in the Samaritan Corruption added unto it It must therefore be upon the account of its signification that it was thus peculiarly exalted and honoured For the Dignity Worth and Use of all Ceremonial Institutions depended on their significancy or their fitness and aptness to represent the things whereof they were Types with the especial worth of what they did peculiarly Typifie And herein the Sabbath even with the Applications it had unto the Judaical Church State came short of many other Divine Services especially the Solemn Sacrifices wherein the Lord Christ with all the Benefits of his Death was as it were evidently set forth crucified before their eyes Neither therefore of these Reasons nor both of them in conjunction can be pleaded as the cause of the manifold preference of the Sabbath above all Ceremonial Institutions It remaineth therefore that it is solely upon the Account of its Morality and the invariable Obligation thence arising unto its Observation that it is so joyned with the Precepts of the same Nature and such we have now as I suppose sufficiently confirmed it to be § 47 I cannot but judge yet farther that in the Caution given by our Saviour unto his Disciples about praying that their flight should not be on the Sabbath Day Matth. 24. 20. He doth declare the continued Obligation of the Law of the Sabbath as a Moral Precept upon all It is answered by some that it is the Judaical Sabbath alone that is intended which he knew that some of his own Disciples would be kept for a season in bondage unto For the Ease therefore of their Consciences in that matter he gives them this Direction But many things on the other side are certain and indubitable which render this conjecture altogether improbable For 1. All real Obligation unto Judaical Institutions was then absolutely taken away and it is not to be supposed that our Lord Jesus Christ would before hand lay in provision for the edification of any of his Disciples in Error 2. Before that time came they were sufficiently instructed doctrinally in the dissolution of all Obligation in Ceremonial Institutions This was done principally by St. Paul in all his Epistles especially in that unto the Hebrews themselves at Jerusalem 3. Those who may be supposed to have continued a conscientious respect unto the Judaical Sabbath could be no otherwise perswaded of it than were the Jews themselves in those Dayes But they all accounted themselves absolved in conscience from the Law of the Sabbath upon eminent danger in time of War so that they might lawfully either fight or fly as their safety did require This is evident from the Decree made by them under the Hasmonaeans And such imminent danger is now supposed by our Saviour for he instructs them to forego all consideration of their Enjoyments and to shift meerly for their lives There was not therefore any danger in point of conscience with respect unto the Judaical Sabbath to be then feared or prevented But in general those in whose hearts are the wayes of God do know what an addition it is to the greatest of their earthly troubles if they befall them in such seasons as to deprive them of the Opportunity of the Sacred Ordinances of Gods Worship and indispensibly engage them in Wayes and Works quite of another Nature than when they stand in most need of them There is therefore another Answer invented namely that our Lord Jesus in these words respected not the Consciences of his Disciples but their trouble and therefore joyns the Sabbath Day and the Winter together in directing them to pray for an Ease and Accommodation of that Flight which was inevitable For as the Winter is unseasonable for such an occasion so the Law concerning the Sabbath was such as that if any one travelled on that Day above a commonly allowed Sabbath dayes journey he was to be put to death But neither is there any more appearance of Truth in this pretence For 1. The Power of Capital Punishments was before this time utterly taken away from the Jews and all their remaining Courts interdicted from proceeding in any Cause wherein the lives of men were concerned 2. The times intended were such as wherein there was no Course of Law Justice or Equity amongst them but all things were filled with Rapine Confusion and Hostility so that it is a vain imagination that any Cognizance was taken about such Cases as journying on the Sabbath 3. The Dangers they were in had made it free to them as to Legal Punishments upon their own Principles as was declared so that these cannot be the Reasons of the Caution here given It is at least therefore most probable that our Saviour speaks to his Disciples upon a supposition of the perpetual Obligation of the Law of the Sabbath that they should pray to be delivered from the necessity of a flight on the Day whereon the Duties of it were to be observed lest it falling out otherwise should prove a great aggravation of their distress § 48 From these particular Instances we may return to the consideration of the Law of the Decalogue in general and the perpetual Power of exacting Obedience wherewith it is accompanied That in the Old Testament it is frequently declared to be universally obligatory and hath the same Efficacy ascribed unto it without putting in any exceptions to any of its Commands or limitations of its number I suppose will be granted The Authority of it is no less fully asserted in the New Testament and that also absolutely without distinction or the least intimation of excepting the fourth Command from what is affirmed concerning the whole It is of the Law of the Decalogue that our Saviour treats Matth. 5. 17 18 19. This he affirms that he came not to dissolve as he did the Ceremonial Law but to fulfill it and then affirms that not one Jot or Tittle of it shall pass away And making thereon a Distribution of the whole into its several Commands he declares his disapprobation of them who shall break
nature soever on other Reasons the Covenant be between them whether that of Works or that of Grace by Jesus Christ. The seventh Day precisely belonging unto the Covenant of Works cannot therefore be firstly but only occasionally intended in the Decalogue Nor doth it nor can it invariably belong unto our absolute Obedience unto God because it is not of the substance of it but is only an occasional determination of a duty such as all other Positive Laws do give us And hence there is in the Command it self a difference put between a Sabbath Day and the arbitrary limitation of the seventh Day to be that day For we are commanded to remember the Sabbath Day not the seventh Day and the Reason given as is elsewhere observed is because God blessed and sanctified the Sabbath Day in the close of the Command where the formal Reason of our Obedience is expressed not the seventh Day Nor is indeed the joint Observation of the seventh Day precisely unto all to whom this Command is given that is to all who take the Lord to be their God possible though it were to the Jews in the Land of Palestina who were obliged to keep that Day For the difference of the Climate in the world will not allow it Nor did the Jews ever know whether the Day they observed was the seventh from the Creation only they knew it was so from the day whereon Manna was first given unto them And the whole Revolution and Computation of Time by Dayes was sufficiently interrupted in the dayes of Joshua and Hezekiah from allowing us to think the Observation of the seventh Day to be Moral And it is a Rule to judge of the intention of all Laws Divine and Humane that the meaning of the preceptive part of them is to be collected from the Reasons annexed to them or inserted in them Now the Reasons for a Sacred Rest that are intimated and stated in this Command do no more respect the seventh Day than any other in seven Six dayes are granted to labour that is in number and not more in a septenary Revolution Nor doth the Command say any thing whether these six dayes shall be the first or the last in the order of them And any day is as meet for the performance of the Duties of the Sabbath as the seventh if in an alike manner designed thereunto which things are at large pleaded by others § 54 It hath hitherto been allowed generally that the fourth Commandment doth at least include something in it that is Moral or else indeed no colour can be given unto its Association with them that are absolutely so in the Decalogue This is commonly said to be that some part of our Time be Dedicated to the Publick Worship of God But as this would overthrow the Pretension before mentioned that there can be no Moral Command about Time which is but a Circumstance of Moral Duties so the Limitation of that Time unto one Day in seven is so evidently a perpetually binding Law that it will not be hard to prove the unchangeable Obligation that is upon all men unto the Observance of it which is all for the substance that is contended for To avoid this it is now affirmed Disquisit p. 14. That Moralc Quarti Praecepti est non unum Diem sed totum tempus vitae nostrae quantum id fieri potest impendendum esse cultui Dei quaerendo regnum Dei Justitiam ejus atque inserviendo aedificationi proximi quo pertinet ut Deo serviamus ejus beneficia agnoscamus celeberemus cum invocemus Spiritu fidem nostram testemur confessione oris c. This is that which is Moral in the fourth Commandment namely that not one Day but as much as may be our whole lives be spent in the Worship of God seeking his Kingdom and the Righteousness thereof and furthering the edification of our neighbour Hereunto it belongeth that we should serve God acknowledge and celebrate his Benefits pray unto him in Spirit and testifie our faith by our Confession § 55 An. It is hard to discover how any of these things have the least respect to the fourth Commandment much more how the Morality of it should consist in them For all the Instances mentioned are indeed required in the first Precept of the Decalogue that only excepted of taking care to promote the edification of our Neighbour which is the summ and substance of the second Table expressed by our Saviour by loving our Neighbour as our selves To live unto God to believe and trust in him to acknowledge his Benefits to make Confession of him in the world are all especial Moral Duties of the first Commandment It cannot therefore be apprehended how the Morality of the fourth Commandment should consist in them And if there be nothing else Moral in it there is certainly nothing Moral in it at all For these things and the like are claimed from it and taken out of its possession by the first Precept And thereunto doth the General Consideration of Time with respect unto these Duties belong namely that we should live unto God whilst we live in this World For we live in Time and that is the measure of our duration and continuance Something else therefore must be found out to be Moral in the fourth Commandment or it must be denyed plainly to have any thing Moral in it § 56 It is farther yet pleaded that the Sabbath was a Type of our Spiritual Rest in Christ both that which we have in him at present by Grace and that which remains for us in Heaven Hence it was a shaddow of good things to come as were all other Ceremonial Institutions But that the same thing should be Moral and a shadow is a contradiction That which is a shadow can in no sense be said to be Moral nor on the contrary The Sabboth therefore was meerly Ceremonial An. It doth not appear it cannot be proved that the Sabbath either as to its first Original or as to the substance of the Command of it in the Decalogue was Typical or instituted to prefigure any thing that was future Yea the contrary is evident For the Law of it was given before the first Promise of Christ as we have proved and that in the state of Innocency and under the Covenant of Works in perfect force wherein there was no respect unto the Mediation of Christ. I do acknowledge that God did so order all his Works in the first Creation and under the Law of Nature as that they might be suitable Morally to represent his Works under the New Creation which from the Analogie of our Redemption to the Creation of all things is so called And hence according to the Eternal Counsel of God were all things meet to be gathered into an Head in Christ Jesus On this account there is an Instructive Resemblance between the Works of one sort and of the other So the Rest of God after the Works of the old
shall be to you an holy Day a Sabbath of Rest unto the Lord whosoever doth work therein shall be put to death Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations on the Sabbath Day Here again the Penalties and the Prohibition of kindling fire are Mosaical and so is on their account the whole Command as here renewed though there be that in it which for the substance of it is Moral And here the seventh Day precisely is made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 holiness unto them or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Convocation of holiness an holy Convocation as it is expressed Levit. 23. 2. where these words are again repeated whose Profanation was to be avenged with Death The Prohibition also added about kindling of fire in their habitations hath been the occasion of many anxious Observances among the Jews They all agree that the kindling of fire for Profit and Advantage in Kilns and Oasts for the making of Brick or drying of Corn or for founding or melting Mettals is here forbidden But what need was there that so it should be seeing all these things are expresly forbidden in the Command in general Thou shalt do no manner of work somewhat more is intended They say therefore that it is the kindling of fire for the dressing of Victuals And this indeed seems to be the intendment of this especial Law as the Manna that was to be eaten on the Sabbath was to be prepared on the Parasecue But withal I say this is a new additional Law and purely Mosaical the Original Law of the Sabbath making no entrenchment on the ordinary duties of humane life as we shall see afterwards Whether it forbad the kindling of fire for Light and Heat I much question The present Jews in most places employ Christian Servants about such works For the poor wretches care not what is done to their Advantage so they do it not themselves But these and the like Precepts belonged unquestionably unto their Paedagogie and were separable from the Original Law of the Sabbath § 17 Lastly The whole matter is stated Deut. 5. 15. where after the Repetition of the Commandment it is added and remember that thou wast a Servant in the Land of Aegypt and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out Arm therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath Day The Mercy and Benefit they had received in their Deliverance from Aegypt is given as the Reason not why they should keep the Sabbath as it was proposed as a Motive unto the Observation of the whole Law in the Preface of the Decalogue but wherefore God gave them the Law of it to keep and observe Therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath Now the Reason of the Command of a Sabbatical Rost absolutely God had every where declared to be his making the world in six dayes and resting on the seventh The mention whereof in this place is wholly omitted because an especial Application of the Law unto that people is intended So that it is evident that the Mosaical Sabbath was on many Accounts and in many things distinguished from that of the Decalogue which is a Moral Duty For the Deliverance of the people out of Aegypt which was a benefit peculiar unto themselves and Typical of Spiritual Mercies unto others was the Reason of the Institution of the Sabbath as it was Mosaical which it was not nor could be of the Sabbath absolutely although it might be pressed on that people as a considerable Motive why they ought to endeavour the keeping of the whole Law § 18 From all that hath been discoursed it appears That the Observation of the seventh Day precisely from the Beginning of the world belonged unto the Covenant of Works not as a Covenant but as a Covenant of Works founded in the Law of Creation And that in the Administration of that Covenant which was revived and unto certain Ends reinforced unto the Church of Israel in the Wilderness it was bound on them by an especial Ordinance to be observed throughout their Generations or during the continuance of their Church State Moreover that as to the manner of the Observance required by the Law as delivered on Mount Sinai it was a yoke and burden to the people because that dispensation of the Law gendred unto Bondage Gal. 4. 24. For it begot a Spirit of fear and Bondage in all that were its Children and subject unto its Power In this condition of things it was applyed unto sundry Ends in their Typical State in which regard it was a shadow of good things to come And so also was it in respect of those other Additional Institutions and Prohibitions which were inseparable from its Observation amongst them whereof we have spoken On all these Accounts I doubt not but that the Mosaical Sabbath and the manner of its Observation is under the Gospel utterly taken away But as for the Weekly Sabbath as required by the Law of our Creation reinforced in the Decalogue the summary Representation of that great Original Law the Observation of it is a Moral Duty which by Divine Authority is translated unto another Day § 19 The ancient Jews have a saying which by the later Masters is abused but a Truth is contained in it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Sabbath gives firmitude and strength to all the Affairs of this World For it may be understood of the Blessing of God on the due Observation of his Worship on that Day Hence it was they say that any young clean Beast that was to be offered in Sacrifice must continue seven dayes with the Damm and not be offered until the eighth Levit. 22. 27. That a Child was not to be circumcised until the eighth Day that there might be an Interposition of a Sabbath for their Benediction And it is not unlikely that the eighth Day was also signalized hereby as that which was to succeed in the Room of the seventh as shall be manifested in our next Discourse The Fifth Exercitation OF THE Lords-Day 1 A Summary of what hath been proved a progress to the Lords-day 2 The new Creation of all things in Christ the foundation of Gospel-Obedience and Worship 3 The old and new Creation compared 4 The old and new Covenant 5 Distinct Ends of these Covenants 6 Supposition of the Heads of things before confirmed 7 Foundation of the Lords-day on those Suppositions 8 Christ the â—uthor of the new Creation his Works therein 9 His Rest from his Works the Indication of a new Day of Rest. 10 Observed by the Apostles 11 Proof of the Lords-day from Heb. 4. proposed 12 The words of the Text. 13 esign of the Apostle in general 14 His answer unto an Objection with his general Argument 15 The nature of the Rests treated on by him 16 The Church under the Law of Nature and its Rest. 17 The Church under the Law of Institution and its Rest. 18
The Church under the Gospel and its Rest. 19 The foundation of it 20 Christ his Works and his Rest intended Heb. 4. 10 21 This farther proved by sundry Arguments 22 What were his Works whereby the Church was founded 23 His entrance into his Rest not in his Death but in his Resurrection 24 The Day of Rest limited and determined hereby 25 The Sabbatism that remains for the people of God 26 The sending of the Holy Ghost 27 Church Assemblies on the first day of the Week 28 The Lords-day Rev. 1. 10. 29 The sum of the preceding Discourse 30 Necessity of the Religious Observation of one day in seven 31 Blessing of God on the Church-worship on the first day 32 Of the seventh day Sabbath Judaism restored in it Of the Ebionites 33 Schisms perpetuated by the opinion of the seventh day Sabbath 34 Penalty of the Law reinforced with it 35 The Whole legal § 1 HOw the Creation of all things was finished and the Rest of God and Man that ensued thereon hath been declared It hath also in part and sufficiently as unto our present purpose been evidenced how the great Ends of the Creation of All in the Glory of God and the Blessedness of Man in him with the pledge thereof in a Sabbatical Rest were for a season as it were defeated and disappointed by the entrance of Sin which brake the Covenant that was founded in the Law of Creation and rendred it useless unto those ends For the Law became Weak through sin and the flesh or the corruption of our Nature that ensued thereon Rom. 8. 5. Hence it could no more bring Man to Rest in God But yet a continuation of the Obligatory force of that Law and Covenant with the direction of it unto other ends and purposes than at first given unto them was under the Old Testament designed of God and hath been declared also Hence was the continuation of the original Sabbatical Rest in the Church of Israel with the especial application of its command unto that people insisted on in the preceding Discourse In this state of things God had of old determined the Renovation of All by a new Creation a new Law of that Creation a new Covenant and a new Sabbatical Rest unto his own Glory by Jesus Christ and these things are now to be discussed § 2 The Renovation of all things by Jesus Christ is prophesied of end foretold as a new Creation of All even of the Heavens and the Earth and all things contained in them Psal. 65. 17 18. chap. 66. 22. 2 Pet. 3 13 Hence the state of things to be introduced thereby was under the Old Testament called the World to come Heb. 2. 5. So it is still called by the Jewish Masters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So Kimchi amongst other Expositions of the Title of Psal. 92. a Psalm or Song for the Sabbath day addes this as that which the most antient Rabbins fixed on 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They interpreted it of the World to come which shall be wholly Sabbath and Rest and these are the dayes of the Messiah A spiritual Rest it is they intend and not a cessation of a Sabbath-day in particular seeing in the prophesie of the new Temple or Church-state in those dayes there is especial direction given for the service of the Sabbath-day Ezek. 46. 4. And this Renovation of all things is said accordingly to be accomplished in Christ 2 Cor. 5. 17 18. Old things are past away behold all things are become New the Old Law Old Covenant Old Worship Old Sabbath all that was peculiar unto the Covenant of Works as such in the first Institution of it and its renewed declaration on Mount Sinai all are gone and antiquated What now remains of them as to any usesulness in our living to God doth not abide on the Old foundation but on a New disposition of them by the Renovation of all things in Christ. For in the dispensation of the fulness of times God gathered unto an Head all things in Christ both which are in Heaven and which are on Earth even in him Ephes. 1. 10. The whole old Creation as far as it had any thing in its self or its order that belonged unto or communicated any thing towards our living unto God and his Glory is disposed anew in Christ Jesus unto that End But this Renovation of all which is the foundation of all our acceptable Obedience unto God and of his present Worship consists principally in the Regeneration of the Elect making them new Creatures and the erection of a new Church-state thereby to the Glory of God Now this new Creation of all must answer unto all the Ends of the Old in reference unto the Glory of God and the Good of them who are partakers of it otherwise it would not be so rightly called nor answer the declared Ends of it which was to gather all things to an Head in Christ Jesus For what was lost by sin as to the Glory of God in the old Creation in this was to be repaired and recovered § 3 We may then as the foundation of our present Discourse consider how these things answer unto one another First the old Creation comprized in it the Law of the Obedience of all Creatures unto God This was therein and thereby implanted on their Natures with inclinations Natural or Moral unto the Observation of it And thus must it be also in the new Creation as unto the subject of it which is the Church This Law of the old Creation unto Man consisted principally in the Image of God in him and con-created with him For hereby did he both know his duty and was enabled to perform it and was acquainted with his Relation unto God and dependance upon him which rendred it necessary and indispensible But this Law in the state of Creation fell under a double consideration or had a double use first of Rule and then as a Principle As a Rule the light that was in the mind of man which was a principal part of the Image of God in him acquainted him with his whole duty and directed him in the right performance of it As a Principle it respected the Ability that the whole man was endowed withall to live to God according to his duty This Law as to its first use being much impaired weakned and in a great measure made useless by sin God was pleased to restore it in the vocal Revelation of his Will especially in the Decalogue which with his own finger he wrote in Tables of Stone In answer hereunto a new Law of Obedience is introduced by the new Creation in Christ Jesus And this principally consisted in the Renovation of the Image of God in the new Creatures which was lost by sin For they are renewed in the spirit of their minds and do put on that new man which after God is created in Righteousness and true Holiness Ephes. 4. 23 24. And
there can be no tolerable Reason assigned why he should mention the works of God from the foundation of the World with his Rest that ensued thereon and referr us to the seventh Day which without respect unto another Day to be introduced doth greatly involve his whole Discourse Again his use of this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Sabbatism which is framed and as it were coyned on purpose that it might both comprise the Spiritual Rest aimed at and also a Sabbath-keeping or Observation of a Sabbath Rest manifests his purpose When he speaks of our Rest in general he still doth it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 adding that there was an especial Day for its enjoyment Here he introduceth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Sabbatism which his way of arguing would not have allowed had he not designed to express the Christian Sabbath Adde hereunto that he subjoynes the especial Reason of such a Days observation in the next Verse as we have declared And here do we fix the Foundation and Reason of the Lords-Day or the Holy observation of the first Day of the Week the Obligation of the fourth Commandment unto a weekly Sacred Rest being put off from the seventh Day to the first on the same Grounds and Reasons whereon the state of the Church is altered from what it was under the Law unto what it is now under the Gospel And the Covenant it self also is changed whence the seventh Day is now of no more force than the old Covenant and the old Law of Institutions contained in Ordinances because the Lord Christ hath ceased from his works and entred into his Rest on the first Day § 26 Here we have fixed the foundation of the observation of the Lords-Day on the supposition of what hath been proved concerning our Duty in the Holy observance of one Day in seven from the Law of our Creation as renewed in the Decalogue The remaining Arguments evincing the change of the Day from the seventh unto the first by Divine Authority shall be but briefly touched on by me because they have been lately copiously handled and fully vindicated by others Wherefore 1 when the Lord Christ intended conspicuously to build his Church upon the foundation of his Works and Rest by sending the Holy Ghost with his miraculous Gifts upon the Apostles he did it on this Day which was then among the Jews the Feast of Pentecost or of Weeks Then were the Disciples gathered together with one accord in the observance of the Day signalized to them by his Resurrection Acts 2. 1. And by this doth their obedience receive a blessed confirmation as well as their persons a glorious endowment with abilities for the work which they were immediately to apply themselves unto And hereon did they set out unto the whole work of building the Church on that foundation and promoting the worship of it which on that Day was especially to be celebrated § 27 The Practice of the Apostles and the Apostolical Churches owned the Authority of Christ in this change of the Day of sacred Rest. For hence forward whatever apprehensions any of them might have of the continuance of the Judaical Sabbath as some of them judged that the whole service of it was still to be continued yet they observed this Day of the Lord as the time of their Assemblies and solemn worship One or two instances hereof may be called over Acts 20. 6 7. We came to Troas in five dayes where we abode seven dayes And upon the first day of the week when the Disciples came together to break bread Paul preached unto them ready to depart on the morrow and continued his speech untill midnight I doubt not but in the seven dayes that the Apostle abode there he taught and preached as he had occasion in the houses of the Believers but it was the first Day of the Week when they used according to their duty to assemble the whole body of them for the celebration of the solemn Ordinances of the Church synecdochically expressed by breaking of Bread This they did without any extraordinary warning or calling together for in answer to their duty they were accustomed so to do Such is the account that Justin Martyr gives of the practice of all Churches in the next Age 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 On the Day called Sunday there is an assembly of all Christians whether living in City or the Countrey and because of their constant breaking of bread on this day it was called Dies Panis August Epist 118. And Athanasius proved that he brake not a Chalice at such a time because it was not the first Day of the Week when it was to be used Socrat. lib. 5. cap. 22 And whosoever reads this passage without prejudice will grant that it is a marvellous abrupt and uncouth expression if it do not signifie that which was in common observance amongst all the Disciples of Christ which could have no other foundation but only that before laid down of the Authority of the Lord Christ requiring it of them And I doubt not but that Paul preached his farewel Sermon unto them which continued untill midnight after all the ordinary service of the Church was performed And all the Objections which I have met withall against this instance amount to no more but this that although the Scripture sayes that the Disciples met for their worship on the first Day of the Week yet indeed they did not so do 1 Cor. 16. 2. the same practice is exemplified Upon the first Day of the Week let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him that there be no gatherings when I come The constant Day of the Churches solemn Assemblies being fixed he here takes it for granted and directs them unto the observance of an especial duty on that Day What some except that here is no mention of any such Assembly but only that every one on that Day should lay by himself what he would give which every one might do at home or where they pleased is exceeding weak and unsuitable unto the mind of the Apostle For to what end should they be limited unto a Day and that the first Day of the Week for the doing of that which might be as well to as good purpose and advantage performed at any other time on any other Day of the Week whatever Besides it was to be such a laying aside such a treasuring of it in a common stock as that there should be no need of any Collection when the Apostle came But if this was done only privately it would not of its self come together at his Advent but must be collected But all exceptions against these Testimonies have been so lately removed by others that I shall not insist farther on them § 28 That from these Times downwards the first Day of the Week had a solemn observation in all the Churches of Christ whereby they owned its substitution in the room of the seventh Day
with all Believers in a peaceable agreement in the worship of God And therefore of all differences in judgement which lead unto practice those are the worst and most pernicious which occasion or draw after them any thing whereby men are hindred from joyning together in the same publick solemn worship whereby they yield unto God that Revenue of his Glory which is due unto him in this world And that many of these are found at this day is not so much from the Nature of the things themselves about which men differ as from the weakness prejudices and corrupt affections of them who are possessed with different Apprehensions about them But now upon a supposition of an Adherence by any unto the seventh day Sabbath all Communion amongst Professors in solemn Gospel-Ordinances is rendred impossible For if those of that perswasion do expect that others will be brought unto a relinquishment of an Evangelical observance of the Lords-day Sabbath they will find themselves mistaken The Evidence which they have of its Appointment and the Experience they have had of the presence of God with them in its Religious Observation will secure their Faith and Practise in this matter Themselves on the other hand supposing that they are obliged to meet for all solemn worship on the seventh day which the other account unwarrantable for them to do on the pretence of any binding Law to that purpose and esteem it unlawfull to assemble Religiously with others on the first Day on the Plea of an Evangelical warranty they absolutely cut off themselves from all possibility of Communion in the Administration of Gospel-Ordinances with all other Churches of Christ. And whereas most other Breaches as to such Communion are in their own nature capable of healing without a Renunciation of those Principles in the minds of men which seem to give countenance unto them the Distance is here made absolutely irreparable whilst the Opinion mentioned is owned by any I will press this no farther but only by affirming that persons truely fearing the Lord ought to be very carefull and jealous over their own understandings before they embrace an Opinion and Practice which will shut them up from all visible Communion with the generality of the Saints of God in this World § 34 We have seen the least part of the inconveniences that attend this perswasion and its practise nor do I intend to mention all of them which readily offer themselves to consideration One or two more may yet be touched on For those by whom it is owned do not only affirm that the Law of the seventh day Sabbath is absolutely and universally in force but also that the Sanction of it in its penalty against Transgressors is yet continued This was as is known the Death of the offender by stoning So did God himself determine the Application of the Curse of the Law unto the breach of this Command in the instance of the man that gathered wood on that day and was stoned by His direction Numb 45. 35. Now the consideration of this penalty as expressive of the Curse of the Law influenced the minds of the Jews into that bondage frame wherein they observed the Sabbath And this alwayes put them upon many anxious arguings how they might satisfie the Law in keeping the Day so as not to incurr the penalty of its Transgression Hence are the Questions among the Jews no less endless than those about their Genealogies of old about what work may be done and what not how far they might journey on that day which when they had with some indifferent consent reduced unto 2000 Cubits which they called a Sabbath-dayes journey yet where to begin their measure from what part of the City where a man dwelt from his own House or the Synagogue or the Walls or Suburbs of it they are not agreed And the dread hereof was such amongst them of old from the rigorous Justice wherewith such Laws with such penalties were imposed on them that untill they had by common consent in the beginning of the Rule of the Hasmonaeans agreed to defend themselves from their Enemies on that Day they sate still in a neglect of the Law of Nature requiring all men to look to their preservation against open violence and suffered themselves to be slain to their satiety who chose to assault them thereon And certainly it is the greatest madness in the world for a people to engage in War that do not think it at least lawfull at all times to defend themselves And yet they lost their City afterwards by some influence from this Superstition And do men know what they do when they endeavour to introduce such a Bondage into the observance of Gospel-worship a yoke and bondage upon the Persons and Spirits of men which those before us were not able to bear Is it according to the mind of Christ that the Worship of God which ought to be in Spirit and Truth now under the Gospel should be enforced on men by capital penalties And let men thus state their Principles The seventh Day is to be kept precisely a Sabbath unto the Lord by virtue of the Fourth Commandment for not one Day in seven but the seventh Day it self is rigorously and indispensibly enjoyned unto observation and that the Transgression of this Law not as to the Spiritual Worship to be observed on it but as to every outward Transgression by journeying or other bodily labour is to be avenged with Death undoubtedly in the practice of these Principles besides that open contradiction which they will fall into unto the Spirit Rule and Word of the Gospel they will find themselves in the same entanglements wherein the Jews were and are And as the Cases that may occur about what may be done and what not what Cases of necessity may interpose for relief are not to be determined by private persons according to their own light and understanding because they have respect unto the publick Law but by them unto whom power is committed to judge upon it and to execute its penalty so there will so many Cases and those almost inexplicable emerge hereon as will render the whole Law an intolerable Burden unto Christians And what then is become of the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and wherein is the preheminence of the Spiritual Worship of the Gospel above the Carnal Ordinances of the Law § 35 And this introduceth an Evil of no less hainous importance than any of those before enumerated The precise observation of the seventh Day as such is undoubtedly no part of the Law naturally moral This we have sufficiently proved before as I suppose That Law is written in the Hearts of Believers by virtue of the Covenant of Grace and strength is administred thereby unto them for the due performance of the Duties that it doth require Nor is it an Institution of the Gospel none ever pretended it so to be If there be not much against it in the New Testament
And hereby are we delivered from that anxious solicitude about particular instances in outward duties which was a great part of the yoke of the People of old For 1 Hence we may in all our duties look on God as a Father By the Spirit of his Son we may in them all cry Abba Father For through Christ we have an access in one Spirit unto tho Father Ephes. 2. 18. To God as a Father as one that will not alwayes chide that doth not watch our steps for our hurt but remembreth that we are but dust One who tyeth us not up to rigid exactness in outward things whilest we act in an holy spirit of filial obedience as his sons or children And there is great difference between the duties of servants and children neither hath a Father the same measure of them The consideration hereof regulated by the general Rules of the Scripture will resolve a thousand of such scruples as the Jews of old while servants were perplexed withall 2 Hence we come to know that he will be worshipped in spirit and in truth Therefore he more minds the inward frame of our hearts wherewith we serve him than the meer performance of outward duties which are alone so far accepted with him as they are expressions and demonstrations thereof If then in the observation of this Day our hearts are single and sincere in our aims at his Glory with delight it is of more price with him than the most rigid observation of outward duties by number and measure 3 Therefore the minds of Believers are no more influenced unto this duty by the curse of the Law and the terror thereof as represented in the threatned penalty of death The Authority and Love of Jesus Christ are the principal causes of our Obedience Hence our main duty lyeth in an endeavour to get spiritual joy and delight in the services of this Day which are the especial effects of spiritual liberty So the Prophet requires that we should call the Sabbath our delight holy and honourable of the Lord Isa. 58. 13. As also that on the other side we should not do our own pleasure nor do our own wayes nor find our own pleasure nor speak our own words And these Cautions seem to regard the Sabbath absolutely and not as Judaical But I much question whether they have not in the interpretation of some been extended beyond their original intention For the true meaning of them is no more but this that we should so delight our selves in the Lord on his holy Day as that being expresly forbidden our usual labour we should not need for want of satisfaction in our duties to turn aside unto our own pleasures and vain wayes which are only our own to spend our time and pass over the Sabbath a thing complained of by many whence sin and Satan have been more served on this Day than on all the Dayes of the Week beside But I no way think that here is a restraint laid on us from such Words Wayes and Works as neither hinder the performance of any religious duties belonging to the due celebration of the worship of God on the Day nor are apt in themselves to unframe our spirits or divert our affections from them And those whose minds are fixed in a spirit of liberty to glorifie God in and by this Day of Rest seeking after Communion with him in the wayes of his worship will be unto themselves a better Rule for their Words and Actions than those who may aim to reckon over all they do or say which may be done in such a manner as to become the Judaical Sabbath much more then the Lords-Day § 10 Thirdly Be sure to bring good and right Principles unto the performance of the duty of keeping a Day of Rest holy unto the Lord. Some of these I shall name as confirmed expresly in or drawn evidently from the preceding Discourses 1. Remember that there is a Weekly Rest or an holy Rest of one Day in the week due to the solemn work of glorifying God as God Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy We have had a Week unto our own occasions or we have a prospect of a Week in the patience of God for them Let us Remember that God puts in for some Time with us All is not our own We are not our own Lords Some time God will have to himself from all that own him in the World And this is that Time season or Day He esteems not himself acknowledged nor his Soveraignty owned in the World without it And therefore this Day of Rest he required the first Day as it were that the World stood upon its legs hath done so all along and will do so to the last Day of its duration When he had made all things and saw that they were good and was refreshed in them he required that we should own and acknowledge his Goodness and Power therein This duty we owe to God as God 2 That God appointed this Day to teach us that as he rested therein so we should seek after Rest in him here and look on this Day as a pledge of eternal Rest with him hereafter So was it from the beginning This was the End of the appointment of this Day Now our Rest in God in general consists in two things 1 In our Approbation of the Works of God and the Law of our Obedience with the Covenant of God thereon These things are expressive of and do represent unto us the Goodness Righteousness Holiness Faithfulness and Power of God For these and with respect unto them are we to give Glory to him What God rests in he requires that through it we should seek for our Rest in him As this was the duty of man in Innocency and under the Law so it is ours now much more For God hath now more eminently and gloriously unveiled and displayed the Excellencies of his Nature and the Counsels of his Wisdome in and by Jesus Christ than he had done under the first Covenant And this should work us to a greater and more holy admiration of them For if we are to acknowledge that the Law is holy just and good as our Apostle speaks although it is now useless as to the bringing of us to Rest in God how much more ought we to own and subscribe to the Gospel and the declaration that God hath made of himself therein that so it is 2 In an actual solemn compliance with his Will expressed in his Works Law and Covenant This brings us unto present satisfaction in him and leads us to the full enjoyment of him This is a Day of Rest but we cannot Rest in a Day nor any thing that a Day can afford only it is an help and means of bringing us to Rest in God Without this design all our Observation of a Sabbath is of no use nor advantage Nothing will thence redound to the Glory of God nor the benefit of our own souls And this they
we should have set up the Calves of our own imaginations to his greater provocation But he hath relieved us herein himself appointing the worship which he will accept Would we therefore give full Direction in particular for the right sanctifying of the Name of God on this Day we ought to go over all the Ordinances of worship which the Church is bound to attend unto in its Assemblies But this is not my present purpose Besides somewhat of that kind hath been formerly done in another way I shall therefore here content my self to give some general Rules for the guidance of men in the whole As 1 That the publick and solemn worship of God is to be preferred above that which is private They may be so prudently managed as not to interfer nor ordinarily to entrench on one another But where-ever on any occasion they seem so to do the private are to give place to the publick For one chief End of the sacred setting apart of this Day is the solemn acknowledgement of God and the performance of his worship in Assemblies It is therefore a marvellous undue custome on the pretence of private duties whether Personal or Domestical to abate any part of the Duties of solemn Assemblies For there is in it a setting up of our own choice and inclinations against the Wisdome and Authority of God The End of the Day is the solemn worship of God and the End is not to give way to the most specious helps and means 2 Choice is to be made of those Assemblies for the celebration of publick worship where we may be most advantaged as unto the Ends of them in the sanctification of this Day so far as it may be done without breach of any Order appointed of God For in our joyning in any concurrent acts of Religious worship we are to have regard unto Helps suited unto the furtherance of our own Faith and Obedience And also because God hath appointed some parts of his Worship as in their own nature and by virtue of his appointment are means of conveying light knowledge Grace in spiritual supplyes unto our souls it is certainly our duty to make choice and use of them which are most meet so to do 3 For the manner of our Attendance on the publick worship of God with Reverence Gravity Order Diligence Attention though it be a matter of great use and moment yet not of this place to handle nor doth it here belong unto us to insist on those wayes whereby we may excite particular Graces unto due actings of themselves as the nature of the Duties wherein we are engaged doth require § 19 4 Although the Day be wholly to be dedicated unto the Ends of a Sacred Rest before insisted on yet 1. Duties in their performance drawn out unto such a length as to beget wearisomness and satiety tend not unto edification nor do any way promote the Sanctification of the Name of God in the Worship it self Regard therefore in all such performances is to be had 1 Unto the weakness of the natural constitution of some the Infirmities and Indispositions of others who are not able to abide in the outward part of Duties as others can And there is no wise Shepherd but will rather suffer the stronger sheep of his flock to lose somewhat of what they might reach unto in his guidance of them than to compell the weaker to keep pace with them to their hurt and it may be their ruine Better a great number should complain of the shortness of some Duties who have strength and desires for a longer continuance in them than that a few who are sincere should be really discouraged by being overburdened and have the service thereby made useless unto them I alwayes loved in sacred Duties that of Seneca concerning the Orations of Cassius Severus when they heard him Timebamus ne desineret we were afraid that he would end 2 To the spiritual edge of the affections of men which ought to be whetted and not through tediousness in Duties abated and taken off Other things of a like nature might be added which for some considerations I shall forbear 2. Refreshments helpfull to nature so far as to refresh it that it may have a supply of spirits to go on chearfully in the Duties of Holy Worship are lawfull and usefull To macerate the Body with Abstinences on this Day is required of none and to turn it into a Fast or to Fast upon it is generally condemned by the Antients Wherefore to forbear provision of necessary food for Families on this Day is Mosaical and the enforcement of the particular precepts about not kindling fire in our Houses on this Day baking and preparing the Food of it the Day before cannot be insisted on without a Re-introduction of the seventh Day precisely to whose observation they were annexed and thereby of the Law and Spirit of the old Covenant Provided alwayes that these Refreshments be 1 Seasonable for the time of them and not when publick Duties require our Attendance on them 2 Accompanied with a singular regard unto the Rules of Temperance as 1 That there be no appearance of evil 2 That Nature be not charged with any kind of Excess so far as to be hindred rather than assisted in the Duties of the Day 3 That they be accompanied with Gravity and Sobriety and purity of conversation Now whereas these things are in the substance of them required of us in the whole course of our lives as we intend to please God and to come to the enjoyment of him none ought to think an especial Regard unto them on this Day to be a bondage or troublesome unto them 3. Labour or pains for the enjoyment of the benefit and advantage of the solemn Assemblies of the Church and in them of the appointed Worship of God is so far from entrenching on the Rest of this Day that it belongs unto its due observation A mere Bodily Rest is no part of Religious Worship in it self nor doth it belong unto the Sanctification of this Day any farther then as it is a means for the due performance of the other Duties belonging unto it We have no bounds under the Gospel for a Sabbath-dayes journey provided it be for Sabbath ends In brief all pains or labour that our station and condition in this world that our troubles which may befall us or any thing else make necessary as that without which we cannot enjoy the solemn Ends and Uses of this Holy Day of Rest are no way inconsistent with the due observation of it It may be the lot of one man to take so much pains and to travel so far for and in the due celebration of the Lords day as if another should do the like without his occasions and circumstances it would be a prophanation of it 4. Labour in works of charity and necessity such as are to visit the sick to relieve the poor to help the distressed to relieve or assist Creatures