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
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
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
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
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
those Works and Rest of God or it could not be proposed as the reason of their suitable practice and for this end did God so Work and Rest. The Law therefore of this holy Rest he reneweth in the Decalogue amongst those other Laws which being of the same nature and original namely branches of the Law of our Creation were to be unto us moral and eternal For God would no longer entrust his mind and will in that Law unto the depraved nature of man wherein if he had not in the best often guided and directed it by fresh extraordinary revelations it would have been of little use to his glory but committed it by vocal revelation to the minds of the people as the doctrinal object of their consideration and recorded it in tables of stone Moreover the nature of the first Covenant and the way of Gods instructing man in the condition of it by his Works and Rest had limited this holy Day unto the seventh Day the observation whereof was to be commensurate unto that Covenant and its administration however the outward forms thereof might be varied § 7 On these suppositions we lay and ought to lay the observation of the Lords Day under the New Testament according to the institution of it or declaration of the mind of Christ who is our Lord and Law-giver concerning it 1. A new work of Creation or a work of a new Creation is undertaken and compleated Isa. 65. 17. Chap. 66. 22 23. 2 Pet. 3. 13. Rev. 21. 1. Rom. 8. 19 20. 2 Cor. 5. 17. Gal. 6. 15. 2. This new Creation is accompanied with a new Law and a new Covenant or the Law of faith and the Covenant of Grace Rom. 3. 27. Chap. 8. 2 3 4. Jer. 31. 32 33 34. Heb. 8. 8 9 10 11 12 13. 3. Unto this Law and Covenant a Day of holy Rest unto the Lord doth belong which cannot be the same Day with the former no more than it is the same Law or the same Covenant which were originally given unto us Heb. 4. 9. Rev. 1. 10. 4. That this Day was limited and determined to the first Day of the Week by our Lord Jesus Christ is that which shall now further be confirmed only I must desire the Reader to consider that whereas the Topical Arguments whereby this Truth is confirmed have been pleaded improved and vindicated by many of late I shall but briefly mention them and insist principally on the declaration of the proper grounds and foundations of it § 8 As our Lord Jesus Christ as the eternal Son and Wisdom of the Father was the immediate cause and Author of the old Creation Joh. 1. 3. Col. 1. 16. Heb. 1. 2 10. so as Mediatour he was the Author of this new Creation Heb. 3. 3 4. He built the House of God he built all these things and is God Herein he wrought and in the accomplishment of it saw of the travail of his soul and was satisfied Isa. 53. 11. that is he rested and was refreshed Herein he gave a new Law of life faith and obedience unto God Isa. 42. 4. not by an addition of new Preceps to the moral Law of God not virtually comprized therein and distinct from his own positive institutions of worship but in his revelation of that new way of obedience unto God in and by himself with the especial causes means and ends of it which supplyes the use and end whereunto the Moral Law was at first designed Rom. 8. 2 3. Chap 10. 3 4. whereby he becomes the Author of eternal salvation unto all that do obey him Heb. 5. 9. This Law of life and obedience he writes by his Spirit in the hearts of his people that they may be willing in the day of his power Psal. 110. 3. 1 Cor. 3. 3 6. Heb. 8 10. not at once and in the foundation of his work actually but only in the causes of it For as the Law of nature should have been implanted in the hearts of men in their conception and natural nativity had that dispensation of righteousness continued so in the new birth of them that believe in him is this Law written in their hearts in all generations Joh. 3. 6. Hereon was the Covenant established and all the promises thereof of which he was the Mediatour Heb. 8. 6. And for an holy Day of Rest for the ends before declared and on the suppositions before laid down evincing the necessity of such a Day he determined the observation of the first Day of the Week For § 9 First On this Day he rested from his works in and by his Resurrection for then had he laid the foundation of the new Heavens and new Earth and finished the works of the new Creation when all the Stars sang together and all the Sons of God shouted for joy On this Day he rested from his works and was refreshed as God did and was from his For although he worketh hitherto in the communication of his Spirit and Graces as the Father continued to do in his works of providence after the finishing of the works of the old Creation though these works belonged thereunto yet he ceaseth absolutely from that kind of work whereby he laid the foundation of the new Creation henceforth he dieth no more And on this Day was he refreshed in the view of his works for he saw that it was exceeding good Now as Gods Rest and his being refreshed in his work on the seventh Day of old was a sufficient indication of the precise Day of Rest which he would have observed under the administration of that original Law and Covenant so the Rest of our Lord Jesus Christ and his being refreshed in and from his works on the first Day is a sufficient indication of the precise Day of Rest to be observed under the dispensation of the new Covenant now confirmed and established And the Church of Christ could not pass one Week under the New Testament or in a Gospel-state of worship without this indication For the Judaical Sabbath as sure as it was so and as sure as it was annexed unto the Mosaical administration of the Covenant was so far abolished as not to oblige really the Disciples of Christ in conscience unto the observation of it whatever any of them might for a season apprehend And if a new Day was not now determined there was no Day or season appointed for an observance of an holy Rest unto the Lord nor any pledge given us of our entring into the Rest of Christ. And those who say that it is required that some time be set apart unto the ends of a Sabbatical Rest but that there is no divine indication of that time when not what it is or shall be if we consider what are the ends of such a Rest as before declared must allow us to expect firmer proofs of their uncouth Assertion than any as yet we have met withall § 10 Accordingly this Indication of the Gospel Day of Rest
of one Day in seven to be injoyned unto all that fear him by a Law perpetual and indispensible upon the account of what is Moral therein The Reason I say of the Obligation of the Law of the Sabbath is natural and thence the Obligation it self universal however the Declaration and and Determination of the Day it self depend on arbitrary Revelation and a Law meerly positive These things being explained and confirmed the other Opinions proposed will fall under our consideration To obtain a distinct Light into the Truth in this matter we must consider both the true Notion of the Sacred Rest as also of the Law of our Creation whereby we affirm that fundamentally and virtually it is required § 8 The general Notion of the Sabbath is a Portion of Time set apart by Divine Appointment for the Observance and Performance of the solemn Worship of God The Worship of God is that which we are made for as to our station in this world and is the means and condition of our Enjoyment of him in Glory wherein consists the ultimate End as unto us of our Creation This Worship therefore is required of us by the Law of our Creation and it is upon the matter all that is required of us thereby seeing we are obliged by it to do all things to the Glory of God And therefore is the solemn Expression of that Worship required of us in the same manner For the End of it being our glorifying him as God and the Nature of it consisting in the Profession of our universal subjection unto him and dependance upon him the solemn Expression of it is as necessary as the Worship it self which we are to perform No man therefore ever doubted but that by the Law of Nature we were bound to Worship God and solemnly to express that Worship for else wherefore were we brought forth in this world These things are inseparable from our Natures and where this Order is disturbed by sin we fall into another which the Properties of God on the supposition of transgressing our first natural Order do render no less necessary unto his Glory than the other namely that of Punishment Moreover in this Worship it is required by the same Law of our Beings that we should serve God with All that we do receive from him No man can think otherwise For is there any thing that we have received from God that shall yield him no Revenue of Glory whereof we ought to make no acknowledgement unto him Who dare once so to imagine Among the things thus given us of God is our Time And this falls under a double consideration in this matter First as it is an inseparable Moral Circumstance of the Worship required of us so it is necessarily included in the Command of Worship it self not directly but consequentially Secondly It is in it self a part of our vouchsafements from God for our own use and purposes in this world So upon its own account firstly and directly a separation of a part of it unto God and his Solemn Worship is required of us It remains only to inquire what part of Time it is that is and will be accepted with God This is declared and determined in the fourth Commandment to be the seventh part of it or one day in seven And this is that which is Positive in the Command which yet as to the foundation formal Reason and main substance of it is Moral And these things are true but yet do not express the whole Nature of the Sabbath which we must farther enquire into § 9 And first it must be observed that whereever there is mention of a Sabbatical Rest as enjoyned unto men for their Observation there is still respect unto a Rest of God that preceded it and was the cause and foundation of it In its first mention Gods Rest is given as the Reason of his sanctifying and blessing a Day of Rest for us whence also it hath its Name Gen. 2. 2 3. God blessed and sanctified the seventh day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because he sabbatized thereon himself And so it is expressed and the same Reason is given of it in the fourth Commandment God wrought six dayes and rested the seventh therefore must we rest Exod. 20. 11. The same is observed in the New Creation as we shall see afterwards and more fully in our Exposition of Heb. 4. Now that God may be said to Rest it is necessary that some signal Work of his do go before For Rest in the first notion of it includes a respect to an antecedent Work or Labour And so it is every where declared God wrought his works and finished them and then rested He made all things in six dayes and rested on the seventh And he that is entred into Rest ceaseth from his work And both these the work of God and the Rest of God must in this matter be considered For the work of God it is that of the old and whole Creation as is directly expressed Gen. 2. Exod. 20. which I desire may be born in mind And this work of God may be considered two wayes First Naturally or Physically as it consisted in the meer production of the Effects of his Power Wisdom and Goodness So all things are the work of God Secondly Morally as God ordered and designed all his works to be a means of glorifying himself in and by the Obedience of his rational Creatures This consideration both the nature of it with the Order and End of the whole Creation do make necessary For God first made all the inanimate then animate and sensitive creatures in their Glory Order and Beauty In and on all these he implanted a teaching and instructive Power for the Heavens declare the glory of God and the Firmament sheweth his handy work Psal. 19. 1 2. and all creatures are frequently called on to give praise and glory to him And this expresseth that in their Nature and Order which revealeth and manifesteth him and the glorious Excellencies of his nature which man is to contemplate in their Effects in them and give glory unto him For after them all was man made to consider and use them all for the End for which they were made and was a kind of Mediator between God and the rest of the creatures by and through whom he would receive all his glory from them This is that which our Apostle discourseth about Rom. 1. 19 20. The design of God as he declares was to manifest and shew himself in his works to man Man learning from them the Invisible things of God was to glorifie him as God as he disputes The ordering and disposal of things to this purpose is principally to be considered in the works of God as his Rest did ensue upon them Secondly The Rest of God is to be considered as that which compleats the Foundation of the Sabbatical Rest enquired after For it is built on Gods working and entring into his Rest. Now this is not a
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
and of the knowledge of Good and Evil ceased as all men confess with that Estate And although God did not immediately upon the sin of man destroy that Garden no nor it may be untill the Flood leaving it as a Testimony against the wickedness of that Apostate Generation for whose sin the world was destroyed yet was neither it nor the Trees of it of any use or lawful to be used as to any significancy in the Worship of God And the Reason is because all Institutions are Appendixes and things annexed unto a Covenant and when that Covenant ceaseth or is broken they are of no use or signification at all § 36 There was a new state of the Church erected presently after the Fall and this also attended with sundry new Institutions especially with that concerning Sacrifices In this Church state some Alterations were made and sundry additional Institutions given unto it upon the Erection of the peculiar Church State of the Israelites in the Wilderness which yet hindred not but that it was in General the same Church State and the same Dispensation of the Covenant that the people of God before and after the giving of the Law enjoyed and lived under Hence it was that sundry Institutions of Worship were equally in force both before and after the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai as is evident in Sacrifices and some other Instances may be given But now when the State of the Church and the Dispensation of the Covenant came to be wholly altered as they were by the Gospel not any one of the old Institutions was continued or to be continued but they were all abolished and taken away Nothing at all was traduced over from the Old Church States neither from that in Innocency nor from that which ensued on the Fall in all its variations with any Obligatory Power but what was founded in the Law of Nature and had its force from thence We may then confidently assert that what God requireth equally in all Estates of the Church that is Moral and of an everlasting Obligation unto us and all men And this is the State of matters with the Sabbath and the Law thereof § 37 Of the Command of the Sabbath in the State of Innocency we have before treated and vindicated the Testimony given unto it Gen. 2. 2 3. It will God assisting be farther discoursed and confirmed in our Exposition of the fourth Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews The Observation of it by vertue of its Original Law and Command before the Promulgation of the Decalogue in Sinai or the first Wilderness Observation of the Sabbath recorded on the occasion of giving Manna hath also been before confirmed Many Exceptions I acknowledge are laid in against the Testimonies insisted on for the proof of these things but those such as I suppose are not able to invalidate them in the minds of men void of Prejudice And the Pretence of the Obscurity that is in the Command will be easily removed by the consideration of another Instance of the same Antiquity All men acknowledge that a Promise of Christ for the Object and Guide of the Faith of the ancient Patriarchs was given in those Words of God immediately spoken unto the Serpent Gen. 3. 15. I will put Enmity between thee and the Woman and between thy seed and her seed it shall bruize thy head and thou shalt bruize its heel The Words in themselves seem obscure unto any such End or Purpose But yet there is such light given into them and the mind of God in them from the circumstances of Time Place Persons Occasions from the Nature of the things treated of from the whole ensuing Oeconomy or dealing of God with men revealed in the Scripture as that no sober man doubts of the Promissory Nature of those Words nor of the Intention of them in General nor of the proper subject of the Promise nor of the Grace intended in it This Promise therefore was the immediate Object of the faith of the Patriarchs of old the great motive and encouragement unto and of their Obedience But yet it will be hard from the Records of Scripture to prove that any particular Patriarch did believe in trust or plead that Promise which yet we know that they did all and every one nor was there any need for our Instruction that any such practice of theirs should be recorded seeing it is a general Rule that those Holy men of God did observe and do whatever he did command them Wherefore from the record of a Command we may conclude unto a suitable Practice though it be not recorded and from a recorded approved Practice on the other side we may conclude unto the Command or Institution of the thing practised though no where plainly recorded Let unprejudiced men consider those words Gen. 2. 2 3. and they will find the Command and Institution of the Sabbath as clear and conspicuous in them as the Promise of Grace in Christ is in them before considered especially as they are attended with the Interpretation given of them in Gods following dealings with his Church And therefore although particular Instances of the Obedience of the old Patriarchs in this part of it or the Observation of the Sabbath could not be given and evinced yet we ought no more on that account to deny that they did observe it than we ought to deny their Faith in the promised Seed because it is no where expresly recorded in the Story of their lives § 38 Under the Law that is after the giving of it in the Wilderness it is granted that the portion of Time insisted on was precisely required to be dedicate unto God although it may be for some Ages it will be hard to meet with a recorded Instance of its Observation But yet none dares take any countenance from thence to question whether it were so observed or no. All therefore is secure unto the great alteration that was made in Instituted Worship under the Gospel And to proceed unto that season there is no Practice in any part of Gods Publick Worship that appears earlier in the Records of the New Testament as to what was peculiar thereunto than the Observation of one Day in seven for the Celebration of it Hereof more must be spoken afterwards Some say indeed that the Appointment of one Day in seven and that the first Day of the Week for the Worship of God was only a voluntary Agreement or a matter consented unto by the Apostolical or first Churches meerly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gratia or to keep good Order and decorum amongst them without respect unto any Moral Command of God to that purpose This they say directly with respect to the first Day of the Week or the Lords Day and its Religious Observation But those who appoint the first Day of every Week to be so observed do without doubt appoint that that should be the Condition of one Day in seven Now I could incline to this
the Law of it in the taking away of the seventh Day it self Such different Apprehensions have men of the use and improvement that may be made of the same Principles and Concessions For those of the later sort hope that if they can prove the Observation of the seventh Day precisely and not one of seven but only consequentially to be the whole of what is intended in the fourth Commandment that by vertue of the Apostles Rule Col. 2. 16. to which purpose he often elsewhere expresseth himself they shall be able to prove that it is utterly abolished Those of the other sort suppose that if they can make this to be the sense of the Commandment they shall prevail to fix a perpetual Obligation on all men from thence unto the Observation of the seventh Day precisely although the words of the Apostle seem to lye expresly against it § 42 But the supposition it self that both parties proceed upon is not only uncertain but certainly false For the very Order of Nature it self disposeth these things unto that series and mutual Respect which can never be interrupted The Command is about the separation of time unto the service of God This he tacitely grants nor will deny if he be pressed who contends for the seventh Day Here therefore it is natural and necessary that Time be indefinitely considered and required antecedently unto the Designation and Limitation of the portion of Time that is required This the Order of Nature requireth For if it be Time indefinitely that is limited in the Command unto the seventh Day Time indefinitely is the first Object of that Limitation And the case is the same with Reference unto one Day in seven This also hath and must have a natural priority unto the seventh Day for the seventh Day is one Day of the seven And these things are separable Some Part of Time may be separated unto Religious Worship and yet not one day in seven but any other portion in a certain Revolution of Dayes Weeks Months or Years if there be not a distinct Reason for it And one Day in seven may be so separated wherein the seventh Day precisely may have no Interest And these things the very Nature of them doth assert distinguish and determine Whatever Morality therefore or Obligation unto a perpetual Observance can be fancied by any to be in the Command as to the seventh Day it is but consequential unto dependant upon and separable from the command and duty for the Observance of One Day in seven And this sussiceth as to our present purpose For I do not yet treat with them who contend for the precise Observation of the seventh Day now under the Gospel It is enough that here we prove that the fourth Commandment requireth the Sacred Observation of one Day in seven and that so far as it doth so it is Moral and unchangeable § 43 All men as we have often observed do allow that there is something Moral in the fourth Commandment namely that either some part of it or the general Nature of it is so I do not therefore well understand them and Him of late who hath pleaded that the seventh Day only is required in that Command and yet that this seventh Day was absolutely Ceremonial and Typical being accordingly abolished The consistency of these Assertions doth not yet appear unto me For if the whole matter of the Command be Ceremonial the Command it self must needs be so also For a relief against this contradiction it is said that the Morality of this Command consists in this that we should look after and take up our Spiritual Rest in God But this will not allow that it should be a distinct Commandment of it self distinguished from all the Rest of the Decalogue nor indeed scarcely from any one of them For the Primitive End of all the Commandments was to direct us and bring us unto Rest with God of the first Table immediately and of the second in and by the Performance of the Duties of it among our selves And of the first Precept this is the sum so that it is unduely assigned to be the peculiar Morality of the fourth instead of the solemn Expression of that Rest as our End and Happiness Neither is there any way possible to manifest an especial Intention in and of any Law that is not found in this The Words and Letter of it in their proper and only sense require a Day or an especial season to be appointed for a Sacred Rest. And so doth the Nature of Religious Worship which undoubtedly is directed therein The Rest of God proposed in the Command as the Reason of it which was on the seventh day after six of working requireth the same Intention in the words So doth also the exact limitation of Time mentioned in it all in complyance with the Order and Place that it holds in the Decalogue wherein nothing in general is left unrequired in the Natural and Instituted Worship of God but only the setting apart with the Determination and Limitation of some time unto the solemn Observation of it Few therefore have ever denyed but that the Morality of this Command if it be Moral doth extend it self unto the separation of some part of our Time to the solemn recognizing of God and our subjection unto him and this in the Letter of the Law is limited on the Reasons before insisted on unto one day in seven in their perpetual Revolution The sole Enquiry therefore remaining is whether this Precept be Moral or no and so continue to be possessed of a Power perpetually obligatory to all the sons of men And this is that which we are now enquiring into § 44 Here therefore we must have respect unto what hath been discoursed concerning the subject matter of the Precept it self For if that be not only congruous to the Law of Nature but that also which by the Creation of our selves and all other things we are taught and obliged unto the Observation of the Law whereby it is required must be Moral For the Descriptive or Distinctive Term Moral doth first belong unto the things themselves required by any Law and thence to the Law whereby they are commanded If then we have proved that the thing it self required in the fourth Commandment or the Religious Observation of a Sacred Rest unto God for the Ends mentioned in the Periodical Revolution of seven dayes is Natural and Moral from the Relation that it hath unto the Law of Creation then there can be no Question of the Morality of that Command What hath been performed therein is left unto the Judgement of the Sober and Judicious Reader For no man can be more remote from a pertinacious adherence to his own sentiments or a Magisterial imposition of his Judgement and Apprehensions upon the minds thoughts or practice of other men than I desire to be For however we may please our selves in our light knowledge learning and sincerity yet when we have done all
place in the Promise of the Covenant that they should be written in our Hearts for if it should be so especial Grace would be yet administred for the Observation of those Laws now they are abolished which would not only be vain and useless but contradictory to the whole Design of the Grace bestowed upon us which is to be improved in a due and genuine Exercise of it Neither doth God bestow any Grace upon men but withal he requires the Exercise of it at their hands If then this Law was written in Tables of Stone together with the other Nine that we might pray and endeavour to have it written in our Hearts according to the Promise of the Covenant it is and must be of the nature of the rest that is Moral and everlastingly obligatory 3. As all the rest of the Moral Precepts it was reserved in the Ark whereas the Law of Ceremonial Ordinances was placed in a Book written by Moses on the side of the Ark separable from it or whence it might be removed The Ark on many accounts was called the Ark of the Covenant whereof God assisting I shall treat elsewhere One of them was that it contained in it nothing but that Moral Law which was the Rule of the Covenant And this was placed therein to manifest that it was to have its accomplishment in him who was the End of the Law Rom. 10. 3 4. For the Ark with the Propitiatory was a Type of Jesus Christ Rom. 3. 25. And the Reason of the different disposal of the Moral Law in the Ark and of the Ceremonial in a Book on the side of it was to manifest as the inseparableness of the Law from the Covenant so the establishing accomplishment and answering of the one Law in Christ with the Removal and abolishing of the other by him For the Law kept in the Ark the Type of him he was to fulfil it in Obedidience to answer its Curse and to restore it unto its proper use in the New Covenant not that which it had originally when it was it self the whole of the Covenant but that which the nature of it requires in the Moral Obedience of Rational Creatures whereof it is a compleat and adequate Rule when the other Law was utterly removed and taken away And if that had been the End whereunto the Law of the Sabbath had been designed had it been absolutely capable of Abolition in this world it had not been safeguarded in the Ark with the other Nine which are inseparable from mans Covenant Obedience unto God but had been left with other Ceremonial Ordinances at the side of the Ark in a Readiness to be removed when the appointed time should come 4. God himself separates this Command from them which were Ceremonial in their Principal Intention and whole subject matter when he calls the whole Systeme of Precepts in the Two Tables by the name of the Ten Words or Commandments Deut. 10. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Those ten Words which the Lord spake unto you in the Mount out of the midst of the fire in the Day of the Assembly No considering Person can read these words but he will find a most signal Emphasis in the several parts of them The Day of the Assembly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is that which the Jews so celebrate under the Name of the Station in Sinai the Day that was the foundation of their Church State when they solemnly covenanted with God about the Observation of the Law Deut. 5. 24 25 26 27. And the Lord himself spake these words that is in an immediate and especial manner which is still observed where any mention is made of them as Exod. 20. Deut. 5. 10. and saith Moses he spake them unto you that is immediately unto all the Assembly Deut. 5. 22. where it is added that he spake them out of the midst of the Fire of the Cloud and of the thick Darkness with a great Voice that every individual Person might hear it and he added no more He spake not one Word more gave not one Precept more immediately unto the whole people but the whole solemnity of Fire Thunder Lightning Earthquake and sound of Trumpet immediately ceased and disappeared whereon God entred his Treaty with Moses wherein he revealed unto him and instructed him in the Ceremonial and Judicial Law for the use of the people who had now taken upon themselves the Religious Observance of what he should so reveal and appoint Now as the whole Decalogue was hereby signalized and sufficiently distinguished from the other Laws and Institutions which were of another Nature so in particular this Precept concerning the Sabbath is distinguished from all those which were of the Mosaical Paedagogie in whose Declaration Moses was the Mediator between God and the people And this was only upon the Account of its Participation in the same Nature with the rest of the Commands however it may and do contain something in it that was peculiar to that people as shall be shewed afterwards 5. Whereas there is a frequent Opposition made in the Old Testament between Moral Obedience and the outward observance of Ordinances of a meer arbitrary Institution there is no mention made of the Weekly Sabbath in that case though all Ceremonial Institutions are in one place or other enumerated It is true Isa. 1. 13. the Sabbath is joyned with the New Moons and its Observation rejected in comparison of Holiness and Righteousness But as this is expounded in the next Verse to be intended principally of the appointed annual Feasts or Sabbaths so we do grant that the Sabbath as relating unto Temple Worship there intended and described had that accompanying it which was peculiar to the Jews and Ceremonial as we shall shew hereafter But absolutely the Observation of the Sabbath is not opposed unto nor rejected in comparison of other or any Moral Duties 6. The Observation of the Sabbath is pressed on the Church on the same Grounds and with the same Promises as the greatest and most indispensible Moral Duties and together with them opposed unto those Fasts which belonged unto Ceremonial Institutions To this purpose is the Nature and Use of it at large discoursed Isa. 58. v. 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14. § 46 Now it is assuredly worth our Enquiry what are the just Reasons of the Preference of the Sabbath above all Positive Institutions both by the place given unto it in the Decalogue as also on the account of the other especial Instances insisted on Suppose the Command of it to be Ceremonial and one of these two Reasons or both of them must be alledged as the cause hereof For this Exaltation of it must arise either from the Excelency of it in it self and service or the Excellency of its signification or from both of them jointly But these things cannot be pleaded or made use of unto the purpose intended For the service of it as it was observed among the Jews it
is the first express mention of the Sabbath unto and amongst that people And it sufficiently declares that this was not the absolute Original of a Sabbatical Rest. It is only an Appropriation and Application of the Old Command unto them For the words are not preceptive but directive They do not Institute any thing anew but direct in the Practice of what was before Hence it is affirmed v. 29. that God gave them the Sabbath namely in this new Confirmation of it and Accommodation of it to their present Condition For this new Confirmation of it by withholding of Manna on that day belonged meerly and solely unto them and was the especial limitation of the seventh Day precisely wherein we are not concerned who do live on the the true Bread that came down from Heaven In those words therefore to morrow is the Rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord there is a certain limitation of the Day a Direction for its Sanctification as confirmed by the New sign of withholding Manna all which belonged to them peculiarly For this was the first Time that as a People they observed the Sabbath which in Aegypt they could not do And into this Institution and the Authority of it must they resolve their Practice who adhere unto the Observation of the seventh Day precisely For that day is no otherwise confirmed in the Decalogue but as it had Relation hereunto § 9 The Jews in this place fall into a double mistake about the Practical Observation of their Sabbath For from those words Bake that which you will bake and seethe that which you will seethe and that which remaineth lay up for you to be kept untill the morning v. 23. They conclude it to be unlawful to bake or seethe any thing on the Sabbath Day whereas the words have respect only to the Manna that was to be preserved And from the words of v. 29. See for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the Bread of two Dayes abide you every man in his place let no man go out of his place on the seventh day they have made a Rule yea many Rules about what Motions or removals are lawful on the Sabbath Day and what not And hence they have bound themselves with many anxious and scrupulous Observances though the Injunction it self do purely and solely respect the people in the Wilderness that they should not go out into the Fields to look for Manna on that day which some of them having done v. 27. an occasion was taken from thence for this Injunction And hereunto do some of the Heathen Writers ascribe the Original of the Sabbatical Rest among the Jews supposing that the seventh day after their departure out of Aegypt they came to a place of Rest in Remembrance whereof they consecrated one day in seven to Rest and idleness ever after whereunto they add other fictions of an alike nature See Tacit Hist. lib. 5. § 10 Not long after ensued the giving of the Law on Sinai Exod. 20. That the Decalogue is a summary of the Law of Nature or the Moral Law is by all Christians acknowledged nor could the Heathens of old deny it And it is so perfectly Nothing belongs unto that Law which is not comprized therein Nor can any one Instance be given to the contrary Nor is there any thing directly and immediately in it but what belongs unto that Law Only God now made in it an especial Accommodation of the Law of their Creation unto that people whom he he was in a second Work now forming for himself Isa. 43. 19 20 21. Chap. 51. 15 16. And this he did as every part of it was capable of being so accommodated To this purpose he prefaceth the whole with an Intimation of his particular Covenant with them I am the Lord thy God and addeth thereunto the Remembrance of an especial Benefit that they and they alone were made partakers of That brought thee out of the Land of Aegypt out of the house of Bondage which he did in the pursuit of his especial Covenant with Abraham and his seed This made the Obligation to Obedience unto the Law as promulgated on Mount Sinai to belong unto them peculiarly to us it is only an everlasting Rule as declarative of the Will of God and the Law of our Creation The Obligation I say that arose unto Obedience from the Promulgation of the Law on Mount Sinai was peculiar unto the Israelites and sundry things were then and there mixed with it that belonged unto them alone And whereas the Mercy the consideration whereof he proposeth as the great Motive unto Obedience which was his bringing them out of Aegypt with Reference unto his setling of them in the Land of Canaan was a Typical Mercy it gave the whole Law a station in the Typical Church State which they were now bringing into It altered not the nature of the things commanded which for the substance of them were all Moral but it gave their Obedience unto it a new and Typical Respect even as it was the Tenor of the Covenant made with them in Sinai with Respect unto the promised Land of Canaan and their Typical State therein § 51 This in an especial manner was the condition of the fourth Commandment Three things are distinctly proposed in it 1. The Command for an Observance of a Sabbath Day v. 8. Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy This contains the whole substance of the Command The formal Reason whereof is contained in the last clause of it Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath Day and hallowed it And upon the neglect of the Observance of the Sabbath in former Generations with a Prospect on the many Difficulties that would arise among the people in the Observation of it for the future as also because the Foundation and Reason of it in the Law of Creation being principally external in the Works and Rest of God that ensued thereon were not so absolutely ingrafted in the minds of men as continually to evidence and manifest themselves as do those of the other Precepts there is an especial note put upon it for Remembrance And whereas it is a positive Precept as is that which follows it all the rest being Negatives it stood more in need than they of a particular charge and special Motives of which Nature one is added also to the next Command being in like manner a Positive Enunciation 2. Secondly There is an express Determination of this Sabbath to be one Day in seven without which it was only included in the Original Reason of it v. 9 10. Six dayes shalt thou-labour and do all thy Work but the seventh Day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God And herein the Day originally fixed in the Covenant of Works is again limited unto this people to continue unto the Time of the full Introduction and Establishment of the New Covenant And this limitation of the seventh Day was
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
this fully answers the first Law as it was a Principle of Light and Power unto Obedience And in a great measure it supplys the loss of it as it was a Rule also For there is a great Renovation thereof in God's writing his Law in our hearts not here to be insisted on But in this new Creation God designed to gather up all that was past in the Old and in the Law thereof and in the continuation of it by writing under the Old Testament unto one head in Christ. Wherefore he brings over in this state the use of the first Law as renewed and represented in Tables of Stone for a directive Rule of Obedience unto the new Creature whereby the first original Law is wholly supplyed Hereunto he makes an Addition of what positive Laws he thinks meet as he did also under the Old Law of Creation for the tryal of our Obedience and our furtherance in it So the Moral Law of our Obedience is in each condition the old and the new materially the same nor is it possible that it should be otherwise But yet this old Law as brought over into this new estate is new also For all things are become new And it is now the Rule of our Obedience not meerly and absolutely unto God as the Creator the first cause and last end of all but as unto God in Christ bringing of us into a new Relation unto himself In the Renovation then of the Image of God in our souls and the transferring our of the Moral Law as a Rule accompanied with new distinct Principles Motives and Ends doth the Law of the new Creation consist and fully answer the Law of the first as it was a Principle and a Rule each of them having their peculiar positive Laws annexed unto them § 4 Secondly The Law of Creation had a Covenant included in it or inseparably annexed unto it This also we have before declared and what belonged thereunto or ensued necessarily thereon Thus therefore must it be also in the new Creation and the Law thereof Yea because the Covenant is that which as it were gathereth all things together both in the Works and Law of God and our Obedience disposing them into that order which tendeth to the Glory of God and the Blessedness of the Creatures in him this is that which in both Creations is principally to be considered For without this no End of God in his Works or Law could be attained nor man be made Blessed in a way of Righteousness and Goodness unto his Glory And the Law of Creation no otherwise failed nor became useless as to its first End by sin but that the Covenant of it was thereby broken and rendred useless as to the bringing of man unto the enjoyment of God This therefore was principally regarded in the new Creation namely the making confirming and ratifying of a new Covenant And the doing hereof was the great promise under the Old Testament Jerem. 31. 32. whereby the Believers who then lived were made partakers of the benefits of it And the confirming of this Covenant in and by Christ is expressed as a part of the new Creation Heb. 8. 9. and it is indeed comprehensive of the whole Work of it § 5 Thirdly The immediate End of the old Covenant was to bring man by due Obedience unto the Rest of God This God declared in and unto his inbred native light by his Works and his Rest that ensued thereon and the Day of Rest which he instituted as a pledge thereof and as a means of attaining it by that Obedience which was required in the Covenant This we have before declared and this was the true original and End of the first Sabbatical Rest. All these things therefore must have place also in the new Covenant belonging unto the new Creation The immediate End of it is our entring into the Rest of God as the Apostle proves at large Heb. 4. But herein we are not absolutely to enter into Gods Rest as a Creator and Rewarder but into the Rest of God in Christ the Nature whereof will be fully explained in our Exposition of that Chapter For Obedience is now to be yielded unto God not absolutely but to God in Christ and with that respect therefore are we to enter into Rest. The foundation hereof must lye in the Works of God in the new Creation and the complacency with Rest which he took therein For all our Rest in God is founded in his own Rest in his Works For a pledge hereof a Day of Rest must be given and observed the reasons and necessity whereof we have explained and confirmed in our preceding Discourses This as hath been shewed originally was the Seventh day of the week But as the Apostle tells us in another case the Priesthood being changed there must also of necessity a change of the Law ensue so the Covenant being changed and the Rest which was the End of it being changed and the way of entring into the Rest of God being changed a change of the Day of Rest must of necessity thereon ensue And no Man can assert the same Day of Rest precisely to abide as of old but he must likewise assert the same Law the same Covenant the same Rest of God the same way of entring into it which yet as all acknowledge are changed The Day first annexed unto the Covenant of works that is the seventh Day was continued under the Old Testament because the outward administration of that Covenant was continued A relief indeed was provided against the curse and penalty of it but in the administration of it the nature promises and threatnings of that Covenant though with other ends and purposes were represented unto the people But now that Covenant being absolutely abolished both as to its nature use efficacy and power no more to be represented nor proposed unto Believers the whole of it and its renewed administration under the Old Testament being removed taken away and disappearing Heb. 8 13. the precise Day of Rest belonging unto it was to be changed also and so it is come to pass § 6 We must here suppose what hath been before proved and confirmed There was a Day of holy Rest unto God necessary to be observed by the Law and Covenant of Nature or Works neither was or could either of them be compleat without it looking on them as the rule and means of mans living unto God and of his coming to the enjoyment of him That this Day was in the innate right of Nature as directed by the Works of God designed and proposed unto it for that purpose to be one Day in seven This was it to learn and this it did learn from Gods creating the World in six dayes and resting on the seventh for God affirms every where that because he did so therefore it was the duty of man to labour on six dayes as his occasions do require and to rest on the seventh This therefore they were taught by
Observation of it was renewed amongst them Not that this Evidence is of it self a sufficient Testimony unto its Original Institution nor that going before but that the Piety of the Patriarchs and Traditions of the Apostate Gentiles do confirm the Time of that Institution which is so expresly recorded § 17 It remaineth that we take a view of the Opinion advanced by many Learned men in Opposition unto what we have been pleading for And this is that the Command concerning the Sabbath was peculiar to the Jews alone and that it was given unto them in the Wilderness and not at all before Many of the Jews as was declared are of this Judgement and thence call the Sabbath the Bride of their Nation that which God gave to them as he did Eve to Adam and to no other Abulensis contends for this Opinion in his Comment on Exod. 16. who is followed by some Expositors of the Roman Church and opposed by others as Cornelius à Lapide c. The same Difference in Judgement is found amongst the Protestant Divines The Dissertations of Rivet and Gomarus on this subject are well known The Controversie being of late renewed especially among some of the Belgick Divines I shall take under consideration the Arguments of one of them who hath last of all defended this cause and weigh of what importance they are separating as much as we can between the matter of our present Dispute which is the Original of the Sabbath and that of the Causes of it which we shall nextly enquire into § 18 The Design is to prove that the Sabbath was first given to the Jews and that in the Wilderness And to this purpose first having repeated the words of the fourth Commandment he adds Quis vero dicere audebit verba haec convenire in hominem ab initio Creationis sicut hic statuitur that is by his Adversary an illi incumbebat opus quidem servile idque per sex dies an ipsi erant servi ancillae an jumenta requietis indigentia an peregrini inter portas ejus quis non videt ad solum Israelitarum statum in toto illo praecepto respici Ita Calvinus in Gen. 2. Postea in lege novum de Sabbato praeceptum datum est quod Judaeis quidem ad tempus peculiare foret fuit enim legalis ceremonia spiritualem quietem adumbrans cujus in Christo apparuit veritas Quo nihil efficacius dici poterat Hanc vero praecepti mentem esse patet ex aliis Testimoniis Scripturae apertissime in quibus Judaeis tantum datum esse Sabbatum constanter docetur Exod. 16. 29. Videte quod Jehovah dedit vobis illud Sabbatum idcirco dat vobis cibum bidui Et Ezek. 20. 12. Sabbata dedi eis ut essent signum inter me ipsos ad sciendum me Jehovam sanctificare ipsos Denique Neh. 9. 14. Sabbatum quoque sanctum notum fecisti eis quum praecepta statutaque leges praeciperes eis per Mosem servum tuum In quibus locis uniformiter docetur tanta cum emphasi per Mosem deum dedisse Judaeis Sabbatum non ergo aliis gentibus datum fuit aut ipsis etiam per Majores ipsorum ante illud tempus ab origine Mundi Disquisit cap. 2. p. 50. An. It is by all confessed that the Command of the Sabbath in the Renewal of it in the Wilderness was accommodated unto the Paedagogical State of the Church of the Israelites There were also such Additions made unto it in the manner of its Observance and the sanction of it as might adapt its Observation unto their Civil and Political Estate or that Theocratical Government which was then erected amongst them So was it to bear a part in that Ceremonial Instruction which God in all his dealings with them intended To this End also the manner of the Delivery of the whole Law and the Reservation of its Tables in the Ark were designed And divers Expressions in the Explicatory part of the Decalogue have the same Reason and Foundation For there is mention of Fathers and Children to the third and fourth Generation and of their sins of the Land given to the people of God in the fifth of Servants and Handmaids in the tenth Shall we therefore say that the Moral Law was not before given unto mankind because it had a peculiar Delivery for special Ends and Purposes unto the Jews It is no Argument therefore that this Command was not for the substance of it given before to mankind in general because it hath some Modifications added in the Decalogue to accommodate it to the present Church and Civil State of the Hebrews as likewise had the fift command in particular 2. For those Expressions infisted on of Work servile work work for six Dayes of servants and handmaids of the stranger within the Gates they were necessary Explications of the Command in its Application unto that people and yet such as had a just proportion unto what was enjoyned at the first giving of this command occasioned from the outward change of the state of things amongst men from what it was in Innocency For in that state God designed man to work and that in the tilling of the Ground whilst he abode in it Gen. 2. 15. He put the Man in the Garden 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to work in it the same word whereby Work is enjoyned in the Decalogue And whereas God had sanctified the seventh Day to be a Day of Rest and thereon put man into the Garden 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to till it by work and labour He did virtually say unto him as in the Command 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Six dayes shalt thou labour and do all thy work Neither was this in the least inconsistent with the condition wherein he was created For man being constituted and composed partly of an Immortal soul of a Divine Extract and Heavenly Original and partly of a Body made out of the Earth he was a middle creature between those which were purely Spiritual as the Angels and those which were purely Terrestrial as the Beasts of the Field Hence when God had made man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of dust from out of the Earth as all the Beasts of the Field were made and had given him distinctly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a breath of life in a distinct substance answerable to that of the Angels above whose creation was not out of any pre-existing matter but they were the product of an immediate Emanation of Divine Power as was the soul of man there was no meet help to be associated unto him in the whole Creation of God For the Angels were not meet for his help and individual converse on the account of what was terrene and mortal in him And the Beasts were much more unsuited unto him as having nothing in them to answer his Divine and more noble part And as his Nature was thus constituted that he should converse as it were amphibiously
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
meer cessation from working It is not absolutely so for God worketh hitherto And the Expression of Gods Rest is of a Moral and not a Natural signification For it consists in the Satisfaction and Complacency that he took in his Works as effects of his Goodness Power and Wisdom disposed in the Order and unto the Ends mentioned Hence as it is said that upon the finishing of them he looked on every thing that he had made and behold it was very good Gen. 1. 31. that is he was satisfied in his works and their disposal and pronounced concerning them that they became his infinite Wisdom and Power so it is added that he not only rested on the seventh Day but also that he was refreshed Exod. 31. 17. that is he took great complacency in what he had done as that which was suited unto the End aimed at namely the expression of his Greatness Goodness and Wisdom unto his Rational Creatures and his Glory through their Obedience thereon as on the like Occasion he is said to rest in his Love and to rejoyce with singing Zeph. 3. 17. Now in the Work and Rest of God thus stated did the whole Rule of the Obedience of man originally consist and therein was he to seek also his own Rest as his Happiness and Blessedness For God had not declared any other way for his Instruction in the End of his Creation that is his Obedience unto him and Blessedness in him but in and by his own Works and Rest. This then is the first End of this Holy Rest. And it must alwayes be born in mind as that without which we can give no glory to God as rational creatures made under a Moral Law in a dependance on Him For this he indispensibly requireth of us and this is the summ of what he requireth of us namely that we glorifie him according to the Revelation that he makes of himself unto us whether by his Works of Nature or of Grace To the solemnity hereof the Day enquired after is necessary To express these things is the General End of the Sabbatical Rest prescribed unto us and our observation For so it is said God wrought and rested and then requires us so to do And it hath sundry particular Ends or Reasons First That we might learn the satisfaction and complacency that God hath in his own works Gen. 2. 2 3. That is to consider the impressions of his Excellencies upon them and to glorifie him as God on that Account Rom. 1. 19 20 21. For hence was man originally taught to Fear Love Trust Obey and Honour him absolutely even from the manifestation that he had made of himself in his works wherein he rested And had not God thus rested in them and been refreshed upon their compleating and finishing they would not have been a sufficient means to instruct man in those Duties And our Observation of the Evangelical Sabbath hath the same respect unto the works of Christ and his Rest thereon when he saw of the Travel of his soul and was satisfied as shall afterwards be declared Secondly Another End of the Original Sabbatical Rest was that it might be a pledge unto man of his Rest in and with God For in and by the Law of his Creation man had an End of Rest proposed unto him and that in God This he was to be directed unto and incouraged to look after Herein God by his Works and Rest had instructed him And by giving him the Sabbath as he gave him a Pledge thereof so he required of him his Approbation of the Covenant Way of attaining it whereof afterwards Hence Psal. 92. whose Title is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Psalm a Song for the Sabbath Day which some of the Jews ascribe unto Adam as it principally consists in contemplations of the Works of God with holy Admirations of his Greatness and Power manifested in them with praises unto him on their Account so it expresseth the Destruction of ungodly sinners and the salvation of the Righteous whereof in that dayes Rest they had a pledge And this belonged unto that state of man wherein he was created namely that he should have a pledge of Eternal Rest. Neither could his Duty and capacity be otherwise answered or esteemed reasonable His Duty which was working in Moral Obedience had a natural Relation unto a Reward And his Capacity was such as could not be satisfied nor himself attain absolute Rest but in the Enjoyment of God A pledge hereof therefore belonged unto his condition Thirdly Consideration was had of the Way and Means whereby man might enter into the Rest of God proposed unto him And this was by that Obedience and Worship of God which the Covenant wherein he was created required of him The solemn Expression of this Obedience and Exercise of this Worship was indispensibly required of him and his posterity in all their Societies and Communion with one another This cannot be denyed unless we shall say that God making man to be a sociable creature and capable of sundry Relations did not require of him to honour him in the Societies and Relations whereof he was capable which would certainly overthrow the whole Law of his Creation with respect unto the End for which he was made and render all societies sinful and rebellious against God Hereunto the Sabbatical Rest was absolutely necessary For without some such Rest fixed or variable those things could not be This is a Time or season for man to express and solemnly pay that homage which he owes to his Creator And this is by the most esteemed the great if not the only End of the Sabbath But it is evident that it falls under sundry precedent Considerations § 10 These being the proper Ends and Reasons of the Original Sabbatical Rest which contain the true Notion of it we may nextly enquire after the Law whereby it was prescribed and commanded To this purpose we must first consider the state wherein man was created and then the Law of his Creation And for the state and condition wherein man was created it falls under a threefold consideration For man may be considered either 1. Absolutely as a Rational Creature or 2. As made under a Covenant of Rewards and Punishments or 3. With respect unto the especial nature of that Covenant First He was made a Rational Creature and thereby necessarily in a Moral Dependance on God For being endowed with Intellectual Faculties in an immortal soul capable of eternal Blessedness or Misery able to know God and to regard him as the first Cause and last End of all as the Author of his Being and Object of his Blessedness it was naturally and necessarily incumbent on him without any farther considerations to Love Fear and Obey him to trust in him as a Preserver and Rewarder and this the order of his nature called the Image of God enclined and inabled him unto For it was not possible that such a creature should be produced and not lye
Apprehension if besides sundry other invincible Reasons that lye against it I did not find that God had alwayes before in all States of the Church from the foundation of the world invariably required the Observation of one Day in seven and I know no Reason why what had been observed all along so far upon his own Authority he would have observed still but no longer on his Command but on the Invention and Consent of men Had the Religious Observance of one Day in seven been utterly laid aside and abolished it would and ought to to have been concluded that the Law of it was expired in the Cross of Christ as were those of Circumcision the Sacrifices and the whole Temple-Worship But to have this Observance continued by the whole Church in and under the Approbation of God whereof none ever doubted by a Reassumption of it through the Authority of the Church after God had taken off his own from it is a most vain Imagination § 39 I dispute not of what the Church may appoint for good Orders sake to be observed in Religious Assemblies But this I dare say confidently that no Church nor Churches not all the Churches in the World have Power by common Consent to ordain any thing in the Worship of God as a Part of it which God had once ordained commanded and required but now under the Gospel ceaseth so to do as Circumcision and Saorifices But this is the State of the Religious Observance of one Day in seven None can deny but that formerly it was ordained and appointed of God And it should seem according to this Opinion that he took off the Authority of his own Command that the same Observance might be continued upon the Authority of the Church Credat Apella Neither do the Footsteps of the Occasion of any such Ecclesiastical Institution appear any where on Record in the Scripture where all things of an absolute new and Arbitrary Institution whether occasional or durable are taken notice of There is indeed mention made and that frequently of the first day of the Week to be set apart for the Assembling of Believers for the Worship of God and a solid Reason is insinuated why that especial day in particular ought so to be But why one Day in seven should be constantly observed to the purpose mentioned no Reason no Account is given in the New Testament other than why men should not lie or stea ' Nor hath any man a Ground to imagine that there was an Intercision of a Sabbatical Observance by the interposition of any time between the Observation of the seventh Day and of the first of the Week for the same Ends and Purposes though not absolutely in the same manner If there be any Indications Proofs Evidences that the first Churches continued without the Observation of one Day in seven after they desisted from having a Religious Respect unto the seventh Day before they had the same regard to the first of the Week unto this purpose I wish they might be produced for they would be of good weight in this matter but as yet no such thing is made to appear For if the Obligation of the Precept for Observing one Day in seven as a Sacred Rest to God may be suspended in any change of the outward State and Condition of the Church it cannot be esteemed to be Moral I speak not of the actual Observance of the thing commanded which for many causes may occasionally and temporarily be superseded but of the obliging force and power in the Command it self which if it be Moral is perpetual and not capable of Interruption Now Testimonies we have that sundry persons not sufficiently instructed in the Liberty of the Gospel and the Law of its Obedience observed both the Dayes the seventh and the first yea it may be that for a while some observed the one day and some the other but that any Christians of old thought themselves de facto set at liberty from the Religious Observation of one day in seven this neither is nor can be proved This Practice then was Universal and that approved of God as we shall see afterwards and farther in another Discourse now more than once directed unto Now what can any man conceive to be the ground of this unvariableness in the commanded and approved Observation of one day in seven in all states conditions and alterations in and of the Church but that the Command for it is part of the Moral unchangeable Law Hereby therefore it is confirmed unto us so to be And indeed if every State of the Church be founded in an especial Work of God and his Rest thereon and complacency therein as a Pledge or Testimony of giving his Church Rest in himself as elsewhere shall be fully confirmed a Sabbatical Rest must be necessary unto the Church in every state and condition And although absolutely another Day might have been fixed on under the New Testament and not one in an Hebdomadal Revolution because its peculiar works were not precisely finished in six Dayes yet that season being before fixed and determined by the Law of Creation no Innovation nor Alteration would be allowed therein § 40 There is yet remaining that which is principally to be pleaded in this cause and which of it self is sufficient to bear the weight of the whole Now this is the Place which the command for the Observation of a Sabbath unto God holds in the Decalogue Concerning this we have no more to enquire but whether it have obtained a station therein in its own Right or were on some other occasion advanced to that Priviledge For if it be free of that Society in its own Right or on the Account of its Origine and Birth the Morality of it can never be impeached if it had only an Occasional Interest therein and held it by a lease of time it may ere this be long since disseized of it Now we do not yet dispute whether the seventh Day precisely be ordained in the fourth Commandment and do take up the whole nature of it as the only subject of it and alone required in it Only I take it for granted that the Observation of one Day in seven is required in the Command which is so because the seventh Day or a seventh Day in a septenary Revolution is expresly commanded § 41 It is indeed by many pretended that the Command firstly and directly respecteth the seventh Day precisely and one Day in seven no otherwise than as it necessarily follows thereon For where the seventh Day is required one in seven is so consequentially And they who thus pretend have a double Design the one absolutely contradictory to the other For those do so who from thence conclude that the seventh Day precisely comprizing the whole Nature of the Sabbath that day is indispensibly and everlastingly to be observed And those do so who with equal confidence draw their conclusion to the utter Abolition of the whole Sabbath and
they are not constituted of God to be the Rule or Measure of other mens Faith Perswasions Apprehensions and Conversations And others whom for some defects at least so supposed by us we may be apt to despise may be yet taught the Truth of God in things wherein we may be out of the way That then which we have to do in these cases is first to endeavour after a full Perswasion in our own minds then to communicate the Principles of Reason and Scripture Testimony which we ground our Perswasion upon unto others labouring with meekness and gentleness to instruct them whom we apprehend to be out of the way so submitting the whole to the Judgement of all that fear the Lord and shall take notice of such things And these Rules have I and shall I attend unto as abhorring nothing more than a proud Magisterial imposing of our Apprehensions and Inclinations on the minds and practices of other men which I judge far more intolerable in particular persons than in Churches and Societies in both contrary to that Royal Law of Love and Liberty which all Believers ought to walk by And therefore as we said what hath been spoken on this subject or shall yet farther be added I humbly submit to the Judgement of the sober and indifferent Readers only assuring them that I teach as I have learned speak because I believe and declare nothing but whereof I am fully perswaded in my own mind § 45 The Nature of the Decalogue and the Distinction of its Precepts from all Commands Ceremonial or Political comes now under consideration The whole Decalogue I acknowledge as given on Mount Sinai to the Israelites had a Political Use as being made the Principal Instrument or Rule of the Polity and Government of their Nation as peculiarly under the Rule of God It had a Place also in that Oeconomy or Dispensation of the Covenant which that Church was then brought under wherein by Gods dealing with them and Instructing of them they were taught to look out after a farther and greater good in the Promise than they were yet come to the Enjoyment of Hence the Decalogue it self in that Dispensation of it was a Schoolmaster unto Christ. But in it self and materially considered it was wholly and in all the Preceptive parts of it absolutely Moral Some indeed of the Precepts of it as the first fourth and fifth have either Prefaces Enlargements or Additions which belonged peculiarly to the then present and future State of that Church in the Land of Canaan but these especial Applications of it unto them change not the Nature of its Commands or Precepts which are all Moral and as far as they are esteemed to belong to the Decalogue are unquestionably acknowledged so to be Let us therefore consider the Pleas for Morality in the fourth Command upon the account of its Interest in the Decalogue and the manifest Evidences of that Interest As therefore the Giving Writing Use and Disposal of the Decalogue were peculiar and distinct from the whole Systeme of the Rest of the Laws and Statutes which being with it given to the Church of Israel were either Ceremonial or Judicial so the Precept concerning the Sabbath or the Sacred Observance of one Day in seven hath an equal share with the other Nine in all the Priviledges of the whole As 1. It was spoken immediately by the Voice of God in the hearing of all the people Exod. 19. Whereas all the other Laws whether Ceremonial or Judicial were given peculiarly to Moses and by him declared unto the rest of the people What weight is laid hereon see Exod. 19. v. 10 11 17 18. Deut. 4. 34. Chap. 33. 2. In the first whereof the work it self is declared in the latter a distinguishing Greatness and Glory above all other Legislations is ascribed unto it And it is worth the Enquiry what might be the cause of this Difference No other appears to me but that God thereby declared that the Law of the Decalogne belonged immediately and personally unto them all and every one upon the Original Right of the Law of Nature which it did represent and express whereas all the other Laws and Statutes given unto them by the Mediation of Moses belonged unto that peculiar Church State and Oeconomy of the Covenant which they were then initiated into and which was to abide unto the Time of the Reformation of all things by Jesus Christ. And here it may be remembred and so in all the ensuing Instances that we have proved the matter of this Command to be first the separation of some time indefinitely to the Worship of God and then the limitation of that time unto one day in seven For this it requires or nothing at all which should be peculiar unto a distinct Precept is required in it as we have before manifested And this one consideration alone is sufficient to evince its Morality 2. This Command as all the Rest of the Decalogue was written twice by the finger of God in Tables of Stone And hereof there was a double Reason First That it was a stable Revocation and Objective Representation of that Law which being implanted on the heart of man and communicated unto him in his Creation was variously defaced partly by the corruption and loss of that Light through the entrance of sin which should have guided us in the Right Apprehension and Understanding of its Dictates and the Obedience that it required partly through a long course of a corrupt conversation which the world had in the pursuit of the first Apostasie and according to the Principles of it plunged it self into God now again fixed that Law Objectively in a way of durable Preservation which in its primitive seat and subject was so impaired and defaced And hereof the Additions mentioned with peculiar Respect unto the Application of the whole or any part of it unto that people were no impeachment as is acknowledged in the Preface given unto them all containing a Motive unto their dutiful Observance of the whole And hence this Law must necessarily be esteemed a part of the Antecedent Law of Nature neither can any other Reason be given why God wrote it himself with those and only those that are so in Tables of Stone Secondly This was done as an Embleme that the whole Decalogue was a Representation of that Law which by his Spirit he would write in the fleshly Tables of the Hearts of his Elect. And this is well observed by the Church of England which after the Reading of the whole Decalogue the fourth Command amongst the rest directs the people to pray That God would write all these Laws in their Hearts Now this concerneth only the Moral Law For although Obedience unto all Gods Ceremonial and Typical Institutions whilst they were in force was Moral and a part of the Law written in the Heart or required in general in the Precepts of the first Table of the Decalogue yet those Lawes themselves had no
Rest of a seventh Day was known and observed from the foundation of the World as hath been proved And therefore if from the Praefixe we are to conclude a Limitation or Determination to be intended in the Words Remember the Sabbath Day yet it respects only the Original Sabbath or the Sabbath in respect of its Original and not any new Institution of it For supposing the Observation of the Sabbath to have been before in use whether that use were only of late or a few dayes before or of more antient Times even from the beginning of the World the Command concerning it may be well expressed by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 remember the Sabbath Day 3. Suppose that the Sabbath had received a limitation to the seventh Day precisely in the Ordinance given unto that people in the first raining of Manna then doth the Observation of that Day precisely by vertue of this Command necessarily take place And yet the Command which is but the revival of what was required from the foundation of the world cannot be said to intend that Day precisely in the first place For the Reason of and in the Original Command for a Sabbatical Rest was Gods making the World in six dayes and resting on the seventh which requires no more but that in the continual Revolution of seven dayes six being allowed unto Work one should be observed a Sacred Rest to God These words therefore Remember the Sabbath Day referring unto the Primitive Command and Reason of it as is afterwards declared in the Body of the Law requires no more but a Weekly Day of Rest whereunto the seventh Day is reduced as added by an especial Ordinance And the Reason of this Commandment from the Works of God and the Order of them is repeated in the Decalogue because the Instruction given us by them being a part of the Law of our Creation more subject unto a neglect disregard and forgetfulness than those other Parts of it which were wholly innate to the Principles of our own Nature it was necessary that the Remembrance of it should be so expresly revived when in the other Precepts there is only a tacit excitation of our own inbred Light and Principles 4. The Emphatical Expression insisted on Remember the Sabbath Day hath respect unto the singular Necessity Use and Benefit of this holy Observance as also to that neglect and decay in its Observation which partly through their own sin partly through the Hardships that it met withal in the world the Church of former Ages had fallen into And what it had lately received of a new Institution with reference unto the Israelites falls also under this Command or is reduced unto it as a Ceremonial Branch under its proper Moral Head whereunto it is annexed And whereas it is greatly urged that the Command of the seventh Day precisely is not the Command of one day in seven and that what God hath determined as in this matter the Day is ought not to be indefinitely by us considered it may be all granted without the least Prejudice unto the Cause wherein we are ingaged For although the Institution of the seventh Day precisely be somewhat distinct from one Day in seven as containing a determinate limitation of that which in the other notion is left indefinite yet this hinders not but that God may appoint the one and the other the one in the Moral Reason of the Law the other by an especial determination and Institution And this especial Institution is to continue unless it be abrogated or changed by his own Authority which it may be without the least impeachment of the Moral Reason of the whole Law and a new day be limited by the same Authority which hath been done accordingly as we shall afterwards declare § 52 It is yet farther pleaded Disquisit p. 9 10 11 12. That no Distinction can be made between a Weekly Sabbath and the seventh Day precisely And if any such difference be asserted then if one of them be appointed in the fourth Commandment the other is not For there are not two Sabbaths enjoyned in it but one And it is evident that there never was of old but one Sabbath The Sabbath observed under the Old Testament was that required and prescribed in the fourth Commandment and so on the other side the Sabbath required in the Decalogue was that which was observed under the Old Testament and that only Two Sabbaths one of one Day in seven and the other of the seventh Day precisely are not to be fancied The seventh Day and that only was the Sabbath of the Old Testament and of the Decalogue These things I say are at large pleaded by the forementioned Author An. 1. These Objections are framed against a Distinction used by another Learned Person about the Sabbath as absolutely commanded in the Decacalogue and as injoyned to practise under the Old Testament But neither he nor any other sober Person ever fancied that there were two Sabbaths of old one injoyned unto the Church of the Israelites the other required in the Decalogue But any man may nay every prudent man ought to distinguish between the Sabbath as injoyned absolutely in words expressive of the Law of our Creation and Rule of our Moral Dependance on God in the fourth Command and the same Sabbath as it had a temporary occasional Determination to the seventh Day in the Church of the Jews by vertue of an especial Intimation of the Will of God suited unto that Administration of the Covenant which that Church and People were then admitted into I see therefore no Difficulty in these things The fourth Commandment doth not contain only the moral Equity that some Time should alwayes be set apart unto the Celebration of the Worship of God nor only the Original Instruction given us by the Law of Creation and the Covenant Obedience required of us thereon wherein the substance of the Command doth consist but it expresseth moreover the peculiar Application of this Command by the Will of God to the State of the Church then erected by him with respect unto the seventh Day precisely as before instituted and commanded Exod. 16. Nor is here the least appearance of two Sabbaths but one only is absolutely commanded unto all and determined unto a certain Day for the use of some for a season § 53 2. That one Day in seven only and not the seventh Day precisely is directly and immediately injoyned in the Decalogue and the seventh only with respect unto an antecedent Mosaical Institution with the Nature of that Administration of the Covenant which the people of Israel were then taken into hath been evinced in our investigation of the Causes and Ends of the Sabbath preceding and been cleared by many And it seems evident to an impartial consideration For the Observation of one Day in seven belongs unto every Covenant of God with man And the Decalogue is the unvariable Rule of mans walking before God and living unto him of what
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
Creation is answered by the Rest of the Son of God upon his laying the Foundation of the New Heavens and New Earth in his Resurrection But that the Sabbath Originally and in its whole nature should be a free Institution to prefigure and as in a shadow to represent any thing Spiritual or Mystical after wards to be introduced is not nor can be proved It was indeed originally a Moral Pledge of Gods Rest and of our Interest therein according to the Tenor of the Covenant of Works which things belong unto our Relation unto God by vertue of the Law of our Creation It continueth to retain the same nature with respect unto the Covenant of Grace What it had annexed unto it what Applications it received unto the state of the Mosaical Paedagogie which were temporary and umbratile shall be declared afterwards § 57 But it is yet pleaded from an Enumeration of the Parts of the fourth Commandment that there can be nothing Moral as to our purpose in it And these are said to be three First The Determination of the seventh Day to be a Day of Rest. Secondly The Rest it self commanded on that Day Thirdly The sanctification of that Rest unto holy Worship Now neither of these can be said to be Moral Not the first for it is confessedly Ceremonial The second is a thing in its own nature indifferent having nothing of Morality in it antecedent unto a Positive Command Neither is the third Moral being only the means or manner of performing that Worship which is Moral An. It will not be granted that this is a sufficient Analysis or Distribution of the parts of this Command The principal subject matter of it is omitted namely the Observation of one Day in seven unto the Ends of a Sacred Rest. For we are required in it to sanctifie the Sabbath of the Lord our God which was a seventh Day in an Hebdomadal Revolution of Dayes Supply this in the first place in the room of the Determination of the seventh Day to be that day which evidently follows it in the Order of Nature and this Argument vanisheth Now it is here only tacitly supposed not at all proved that one Day in seven is not required 2. Rest in it self absolutely considered is no part of Divine Worship antecedently unto a Divine Positive Command But a Rest from our own works which might be of use and advantage unto us which by the Law of our Creation we are to attend unto in this world that we may intend and apply our selves to the Worship of God and solemnly express our universal Dependance upon him in all things a Rest representing the Rest of God in his Covenant with us and observed as a pledge of our entring into his Rest by vertue of that Covenant and according to the Law of it such as is the Rest here injoyned is a part of the Worship of God This is the Rest which we are directed unto by the Law of our Creation and which by the Moral Reason of this Command is injoyned unto us on one Day in seven and in these things consists the Morality of this Precept on whose account it hath a place in the Decalogue which on all the Considerations before mentioned could not admit of an Association with one that was purely Ceremonial 3. Granting the Dedication of some Time or part of Time unto the Solemn Worship of God to be required in this Command as is by all generally acknowledged and let a Position be practically advanced against this we insist on namely that one Day in seven is the Time determined and limited for that purpose and we shall quickly perceive the mischievous consequents of it For when men have taken out of the hand of God the division between the Time that is allowed unto us for our own occasions and what is to be spent in his service and have cast off all influencing Direction from his Example of working six dayes and resting the seventh and all guidance from that seemingly perpetual Direction that is given us of imploying ordinarily six Days in the necessary affairs of this life they will find themselves at no small loss what to fix upon or wherein to acquiesce in this matter It must either be left to every individual man to do herein as seems good unto him or there must an Umpirage of it be committed unto others either the Church or the Magistrate And hence we may expect as many different Determinations and Limitations of Time as there are distinct Ecclesiastical or Political Powers amongst Christians What variety Changeableness would hence ensue what Confusion this would cast all the Disciples of Christ into according to the prevalency of Superstition or Profaneness in the minds of those who claim this power of determining and limiting the time of Publick Worship is evident unto all The Instance of Holy Dayes as they are commonly called will farther manifest what of it self lyes naked under every rational Eye The Institution and Observation of them was ever resolved into the Moral Part of this Command for the dedicating of some part of our Time unto God but the Determination hereof being not of God but left un-the Church as it is said one Church multiplyes them without End until they grew an unsupportable yoke unto the people another reduceth this number into a narrower compass a third rejects them all and no two Churches that are Independent Ecclesiastically and Politically one on the other do agree about them And so will and must the matter fall out as to the especial Day whereof we discourse when once the Determination of it by Divine Authority is practically rejected As yet men deceive themselves in this matter and pretend that they believe otherwise then indeed they do Let them come once soberly to joyn their Opinion of their Liberty and their Practice together actually rejecting the Divine limitation of one day in seven and they will find their own consciences under more disorder then yet they are aware of Again if there be no day determined in the fourth Command but only the seventh precisely which is Ceremonial with a general Rule that some time is to be dedicated to the service of God there is no more of Morality in this Command then in any of those for the Observation of New Moons and annual Feasts with Jubilees and the like in all which the same general Equity is supposed and a Ceremonial Day limited and determined And if it be so as far as I can understand we may as lawfully observe New Moons and Jubilees as a Weekly Day of Rest according to the custome of all Churches § 58 The words of the Apostle Paul Col. 2. 16 17. are at large insisted on to prove that the Sabbath was only Typical and a shadow of things future Let no man therefore judge you in Ment or in Drink or in respect of an Holy Day or of the New Moon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or of the Sabbaths or
a shadow It is true that which is Moral so far as it is Moral cannot be a shadow We therefore say that the Weekly Observation of a Day of Rest from the foundation of the world whereunto a general Obligation was laid on all men unto its Observation the Command whereof was a part of the Moral Law of God was no shadow nor is so called by the Apostle nor did Typifie good things to come But that which is in its own Nature Moral may in respect of some peculiar manner of its Observance in such a Time or season and some Adjuncts annexed unto it in respect whereof it becomes a part of Ceremonial Worship be so far and in those respects esteemed a shadow and as such pass away In brief The Command it self of observing one Day in seven as an holy Rest unto God hath nothing Aaronical or Typical in it but hath its foundation in the Light of Nature as directed by the Works of God and his Rest thereon For its limitation precisely to the last Day of the Week with other Directions and Injunctions for and in the manner of its Observance they were Mosaical and as a shadow are departed as we shall manifest in our ensuing Exercitations § 59 But yet neither can it be absolutely proved if we would insist thereon that the Weekly Sabbath is in any sense intended in these words of the Apostle For he may design the Sabbatical Years which were instituted among that people and probably now pressed by the Judaizing Teachers on the Gentile Proselytes Nor will the exception put in from some of the Rabbins that the Sabbatical Years were not to be observed out of the Land of Canaan from which Colosse was far enough distant reinforce the Argument to this purpose For as men in one place may have their Consciences exercised and bound with the Opinion of what is to be done in another though they cannot engage in the practice of it whilst they are absent so our Apostle chargeth the Galatians as far distant from Canaan as the Colossians that when they began to Judaize they observed years as well as Dayes and Months and Times which could respect only the Sabbatical years that were instituted by the Law of Moses Exercitatio Quarta Of the Judaical Sabbath 1 The Sabbath how required by the Law of Nature as a Covenant 2 Explanations of the Law of the Sabbath in the fourth Precept of the Decalogue 3 The Law of Creation and Covenant of Works renewed in the Church of Israel with what Alterations 4 The Sabbath why said to be given peculiarly to the Israelites 5 Change in the Covenant introduceth a change in the Sabbath 6 The whole Nature of the Judaical Sabbath and how it is abolished 7 Jews sense of the Original of the Sabbath rejected 8 The first appropriation of the Law of the Sabbath to that people Exod. 16. 9 Their mistakes about its Observation 10 The giving of the Law on Mount Sinai with the Ends of it 11 Nature of the fourth Commandment thereon what Ceremonial in it 12 Renovation of the Command of the Sabbath Exod. 31. 12 13. 13 Occasion hereof 14 Appropriations made of the Sabbath to the Church of Israel in this Renovation 15 The Commandment renewed again Exod. 34. 21. New additions made to it 16 So also Exod. 35. 2 3. 17 The whole matter stated Deut. 5. 15. 18 The Conclusion The Fourth Exercitation § 1 WE have declared how the Observation of a Septenary Sacred Rest is required by the Moral Law or the Law of our Creation Now this is not absolutely and meerly as it is a Law but as it contained a Covenant between God and man A Law it might have been and not have had the nature of a Covenant which doth not necessarily follow upon either its instructive or preceptive Power Yet it was originally given in the Counsel of God to that End and accompanied with Promises and Threatnings whence it had the Nature of a Covenant By vertue of this Law as a Covenant was the Observation of a Sabbath prescribed and required as a Token and Pledge of Gods Rest in that Covenant in the performance of the Works whereon it was constituted and of the Interest of man in that Rest as also a Means of Entrance into it On this ground it should have been observed in the State of Innocency wherein the Law of it was given and declared For it was no less necessary unto that state and condition than unto any other wherein God requireth Covenant Obedience of men nor considering the Nature and Ends of an holy Rest or Sabbath can any Reason be given why it should be thought accommodated only to the Administration of the Covenant under the Old Testament after the giveing of the Law whereunto by some it is appropriated § 2 It is true indeed that in the Fourth Commandment there is an explanation of the Rest of the Sabbath so far as it consisteth in a Cessation from our own works that are of use and advantage to the outward man in this life suited as unto the state and condition of mankind in general since the Fall so unto the especial state of the Jews at that time when the Law was given as there was also in the Additional Appendix of the first Commandment But for the substance of it the same kind of Rest was to be observed in the State of Innocency and was necessary thereunto on the grounds before insisted or Servile Labour with Trouble Sweat and Vexation was occasioned by the Curse Gen. 3. 17 18 19. The State also of Servants and Handmaids such as was then and is still in use followed on the entrance of sin though meerly to serve be no part of the Curse 1 Cor. 7. 20 21. as having its foundation in that subordination which is natural And the Government of Servants ought not to be Despotical but Paternal Gen. 18. 19. In these things there was some Variation supposed in the giving of the Decalogue as to their outward manner from the original state of things amongst mankind But there was also Work required of man or labour in the Earth with reference unto his natural life and subsistence in this world in the state of Innocency For it is said expresly that God put man into the Garden 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gen. 2. 15. to labour in it and to preserve it by labour for his Use. A Cessation therefore from bodily labour was consistent with and useful unto that condition that men thereby might be enabled to give themselves in the season they were directed unto by the Works and Example of God wholly unto the especial Ends of living unto him according to the Covenant made with them There is nothing therefore in the fourth Commandment directing unto six dayes of labour and requiring a seventh unto Rest that is inconsistent or not compliant with the Law of our Creation and the state of living unto God constituted thereby although the
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
absolutely changed or abolished but a afresh represented unto the people only with a relief provided for the Covenanters against its Curse and Severity with a direction how to use it to another End than was first given unto it it follows that the Day of the Sabbatical Rest could not be changed And therefore was the Observation of the seventh Day precisely continued because it was a Moral Pledge of the Rest of God in the first Covenant For this the instructive part of the Law of our Creation from Gods making the world in six dayes and resting on the seventh did require The Observation of this day therefore was still continued among the Israelites because the first Covenant was again represented unto them But when that Covenant was absolutely and in all Respects as a Covenant taken away and disannulled and that not only as to its formal Efficacy but also as to the manner of the Administration of Gods Covenant with men as it is under the Gospel there was a necessity that the Day of Rest should also be changed as I have more fully shewed elsewhere I say then that the precise Observation of the seventh Day enjoyned unto the Israelites had respect unto the Covenant of Works wherein the foundation of it was laid as hath been demonstrated And the whole Controversie about what day is to be observed now as a Day of holy Rest unto the Lord is resolved fully into this enquiry namely what Covenant we do walk before God in § 6 And that we may understand the whole Nature of the Judaical Sabbath it must moreover be considered that the Law in general and all the Precepts of it was the Instrument of the Politie of the people under the Government of God as we before observed For all the Judgements relating unto Civil things were but an Application of the Moral Law to their State and Condition Hence was the sanction of the transgressions of it to be punished with Death So was it in particular with respect unto the Sabbath Numb 15. 35 partly that it might represent unto them the Original Sanction of the whole Law as a Covenant of Works and partly to keep that stubborn people by this severity within due bounds of Government Nor was any thing punished by Death Judicially in the Law but the transgression of some Moral Command 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Hand of Heaven is threatned against their Presumptuous Transgressions of the Ceremonial Law where no Sacrifice was allowed I the Lord will set my Face against that man and cut him off This also made the Sabbath a yoke and a burden that wherein their Consciences could never find perfect Rest. And in this sense also it is abolished and taken away Again it was made a part of their Law for Religious Worship in their Typical Church State in which and whereby the whole Dispensation of the Covenant which they were under was directed unto other Ends. And so it had the Nature of a shadow representing the good things to come whereby the people were to be relieved from the Rigor and Curse of the whole Law as a Covenant And on these Reasons new Commands were given for the Observation of the Sabbath new Motives Ends and Uses were added thereunto every way to accommodate it to the Dispensation of the Covenant then in force which was afterwards to be removed and taken away and therewithall the Sabbath it self so far as it had Relation thereunto For the continuation of the seventh Day precisely belonged unto the new Representation that was made of the Covenant of Works The Representation of that Covenant with the sanction given unto it amongst the Judgements of Righteousness in the Government of the people in the Land of Canaan which was the Lords and not theirs made it a yoke and burden and the use it was put unto amongst Ceremonial Observances made it a shadow in all which respects it is abolished by Christ. To say that the Sabbath as given unto the Jews is not abolished is to introduce the whole Systeme of Mosaical Ordinances which stand on the same bottom with it And particularly the Observation of the seventh Day precisely lyeth as it were in the Heart of that Oeconomy And these things will the more clearly appear if we consider the dealing of God with that people about the Sabbath from first to last § 7 The Jews some of them at least as was before discoursed would have not only the first Revelation of the Sabbath unto them or the Renovation of its Command but its first Institution absolutely to have been in their station at Mara Exod. 15. The vanity of this pretence we have before sufficiently discovered And whereas this was the Opinion of the Talmudical Masters of the Middle Ages since Christ they seem to have embraced it on the same Account whereon they have invented many other Fancies For observing that a Sabbath was in esteem amongst the Christians in Opposition unto them they began to contend that the Sabbath was as they called it the Bride of the Synagogue and belonged to themselves alone being given secretly to them only The vanity of this pretence we have before laid open and so shall not again insist upon it § 8 The first peculiar dealing of God with them about the Sabbath was evidently in their first Station at Alush Exod. 16. The occasion of the whole is laid down v. 4 5. Then said the Lord unto Moses Behold I will rain Bread from Heaven for you and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day that I may prove them whether they will walk in my Laws or no And it shall come to pass that in the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in and it shall be twice as much as they gather dayly Here is no mention of the Sabbath nor any Reason given why they should gather a double portion on the sixth Day This Command therefore must needs have seemed somewhat strange unto them if they had before no notion at all of a seventh Dayes Sacred Rest. They must else otherwise have been at a great loss in themselves why they must double their measure on the sixth Day However it is apparent that either they had lost the true Day they were to observe through that long Bondage in Aegypt or knew not what belonged to the due Observation and Sanctification of it For when the people had observed this Command and gathered a double portion of Manna to keep one part of it for the next day although they had Experience that if at another season it were kept above one Day it would putrifie and stink v. 20. The Rulers of the Congregation fearing some mistake in the matter go and acquaint Moses with what was done amongst them v. 22. Hereon Moses replyeth unto them v. 23. This is that which the Lord hath said to morrow is the Rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord bake that which you will bake This
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