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 itself, distinguished from all the rest of the decalogue: indeed it would thus scarcely be distinguished 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 ourselves. And of the first precept this is the sum; so that it is unduly 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 days of working, requires the same intention in the words. So doth also the exact limitation of time mentioned in it, all in compliance 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 limitition of some time to the solemn observance of it. Few, therefore, have ever denied, but that the morality of this command, if it be moral, doth extend itself unto the separation of some part of our time to the solemn recognising of God, and of our subjection to him; and this in the letter of the law is limited, on the reasons before insisted on, to one day in seven in their perpetual revolution. The sole inquiry, therefore, remaining is, whether this precept be-moral or not, and so continue to be possessed of a power perpetually obligatory.on all the sons of men, And this is that which we are now inquiring into.
§ 44. Here therefore we must have respect to what hath been discoursed, concerning the subject-matter of the precept itself. For if that be not only congruous to the law of nature, but that also, which by the creation of ourselves, and of all other things, we are taught and obliged unto the observance of, the law whereby it is required must be moral. For the descriptive, or distinctive term moral, doth first belong to the things themselves required by any law, and thence to the law whereby they are commanded. If then we have proved, that the thing itself required in the fourth commandment, or the religious observance of a sacred rest unto God for the ends mentioned, in the periodical revolution of seven days, is natural and moral, from the relation that it hath to the law of creation, then there can be no question of the morality of that command. What hath been performed therein, is left to the judgment 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 judgment and apprehensions upon the minds, thoughts, or practice of other men, than I desire to be. For however we may please ourselves in our light, knowledge, learning, and sincerity, yet when we have done all, they are not constituted of God to be the rule or measure of other men’s faith, persuasions, 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 persuasion in our own minds then to communicate the principles of reason and Scripture testimony, upon which we ground our persuasion to others, labouring with meekness and gentleness to instruct them, whom we apprehend to be out of the way; so submitting the whole to the judgment of all that fear the Lord, and shall take notice of such things. And these rules have I, and shall I attend to, as abhorring nothing more than a proud magisterial imposing of our appre-~ hensions and inclinations on the minds and practices of other men. Indeed, I judge this to be far more intolerable in particular persons, than in churches and societies, though in both it is contrary to that royal law of love and liberty, which all believers ought to walk by. And therefore, as we have said, what hath been spoken on this subject, or shall yet farther be added, I humbly submit to the judgment of the sober and indifferent readers, only assuring them that I teach as I have learned, that I speak because I believe, and declare nothing of which I am not fully persuaded 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 economy or dispensation of the covenant, which that church was then brought under, wherein by God’s dealing with them and instructing of them, they were taught to lool out after a farther and greater good in the promise, than they were yet come to the enjoyment of. Hence the decalogue itself, in that dispensation of it, was a schoolmaster unto Christ. But in itself, 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, whick belonged peculiarly to the then present and future state of that church in the land of Canaan; but these special applications of it to 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 plea 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 peeuliar and distinct from the whole system 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 privileges of the whole. As,
1. It was spoken immediately by the voice of God, in the hearing of all the people, Exod. xix., whereas all the other laws, whether ceremonial or judicial, were given peculiarly to Moses, and by him declared to the rest of the people. What weight is laid hereon, see Exod. xix. 10, 11, 17, 18; Deut. iv. 33, xxxiii. 2. In the first whereof, the work itself is declared; in the latter, a distinguishing greatness and glory, above all other legislations, is ascribed unto it. And it is worth the inquiry what might be the cause of this difference. No other appears to me, but that God thereby declared, that the law of the decalogue belonged immediately and personally to 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 to them by the mediation of Moses, belonged to that peculiar church state and economy of the covenant, which they were then initiated into, and. which was to abide to the time of the reformation of all things by
Jesus Christ. And it may be remembered here, and so in all the ensuing instances, that we have proved that the matter of this command is first, the separation of some time indefinitely to the worship of God, and then the limitation of that time to one day in seven. For this it requires, or nothing at all which should be peculiar to 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 renovation, 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 corrupt conversation which the world had in the pursuit of the first apostasy, and according to the principles of it, plunged itself 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 to the application of the whole, or any part of it, to that people, were no impeachment, as acknowledged in the preface given to them all, containing a motive to 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 emblem, that the whole decalogue was a represention 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 God’s 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 laws themselves had no place in the promise of the covenant, that they should be written in our hearts. For if it should be so, special grace would be yet administered for the observance 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. This commandment, like all the rest of the moral precepts, was preserved 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 acccounts 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.
x. 3,4. For the ark, with the propitiatory, was a type of Jesus Christ, Rom. iii. 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 the inseparableness of the law from the covenant, and also 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, which was the type of him, he was to fulfilin obedience, he was to answer its curse, and to restore it to its proper use in the new covenant; not that which it had originally, when it was itself the whole of the covenant, but that which the nature of it requires in the moral obedience of rational creatures, whereof it is a complete 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 eapable of abolition in this world, it had not been preserved in the ark with the other nine, which are inseparable from man’s covenant obedience to God; but had been left with other ceremonial ordinances at the side of the ark, ina 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 system of precepts in the two tables, by the name of the ten words or commandments, Deut. x. 4, WW DDN MTT ἽΞῚ ἼΩΝ OMIT Mwy nN Dap ὈῚΞ WaT Jima ‘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 considerate person can read these words, but he will find a most sional emphasis in the several parts of them. The day of the assembly bap Dy, 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 observance of the law, Deut. ν. 24—27. And the Lord himself spake these words, that is, im an immediate and especial manner, which is still observed where any mention is made of them, as Exod. xx; Deut. v. & x. and, saith Moses, he ‘ spake them unto you; that is, immediately unto all the assembly, Deut. ν. 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 to the whole people; but the whole so- Jemnity of fire, thunder, lightning, earthquake, andsound of trumpet, immediately ceased and disappeared. Then God entered on 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 Mosaic pedagogy, 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 shown afterwards.
5. Whereas there is a frequent opposition made in the Old Testament between moral obedience, and the outward observance of ordinances of a merely arbitrary institution, there is no mention made of a weekly Sabbath in that case, though all ceremonial institutions are in one place or other enumerated.“It is true, Isa. i. 13, the Sabbath is joined with the new moons, and its observance 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 show hereafter. But absolutely the observance of the Sabbath is not opposed unto, nor rejected, in comparison of other, or any moral duties.
6. The observance of the Sabbath is pressed on the church, on the same grounds, and with the same promises, as the greatest and most indispensable moral duties, and together with them opposed unto those fasts which belonged to ceremonial institutions. To this purpose is the nature and use of it at large discoursed, Isa. lvin. 6—14.
§ 46. Now it is assuredly worth our inquiry, what are the just reasons of the preference of the Sabbath above all positive institutions, both by the place given to it in the decalogue, as also on the account of the other special instances insisted on.” If you suppose the command of it to be ceremonial, then one of these two reasons, or both of them, must be alleged as the cause hereof. For this exaltation of it must arise, either from the excellency of it in itself and in its service, or from the excellency of its signification, or from both of them jointly. But these things cannot be pleaded or made use of to the purpose intended. For the service of it, as it was observed among the Jews, it is now earnestly pleaded, that it consisted in mere bodily rest, which is scarcely to be reckoned as any part of divine service at all. What is farther in it, is said to be only a mere circumstance of time, not in any thing better than that of place, which had an arbitrary determination also for a season. It cannot therefore be thus exalted and preferred above all other ordinances of worship upon the account of its service, seeing it is apprehended to be only a mere adjunct of other services, which were therefore more worthy than it, as every thing which is for itself, is more worthy than that which is only for another. And take it absolutely, place is a more noble circumstance than time in this case, considering that place being determined by an arbitrary institution in the building of the temple, became the most glorious and significant part of divine worship; yet had it no place in the decalogue, but only in the Samaritan corruption added to it. It must therefore be upon the account of its signification, that it was thus peculiarly exalted and honoured. For the dignity, worth, and use of all ceremonial institutions, depended on their significancy, or their fitness and aptness to represent the things whereof they were types, with the especial worth of what they did peculiarly typify. And herem the Sabbath, even with the applications it had to the Judaical church-state, came short of many other divine services, especially the solemn sacrifices wherein the Lord Christ, with all the benefits of his death, was as it were evidently set forth crucified before their eyes. Neither therefore of these reasons, nor both of them in conjunction, can be pleaded as the cause of the manifold preference of the Sabbath above all ceremonial institutions. It remaineth therefore that it is solely on the account of its morality, and the invariable obligation thence arising unto its observance, that it is so joined with the precepts of the same nature; and such we have now, as [ suppose, sufficiently confirmed it to be.
§ 47. I cannot but judge yet farther, that in the caution given by our Saviour unto his disciples, about praying that their flight should not be on the Sabbath day, Matt. xxxiv. 20, he doth declare the continued obligation of the law of the Sabbath, as a moral precept upon all. It is answered by some, that it is the Judaical Sabbath alone that is intended, which he knew that some of his own disciples would be kept, for a season, in bondage to. For the ease, therefore, of their consciences in that matter, he gives them this direction. But many things on the other side are certain and indubitable, which render this conjecture altogether improbable. For, 1. All real obligation to Judaical institutions was then absolutely taken away; and it is not to be supposed that our Lord Jesus Christ would beforehand lay in provision for the edification of any of his disciples in error. 2. Before that time came, they were sufliciently instructed doctrinally in the dissolution of all obligation in ceremonial institutions. This was done principally by St. Paul in all his epistles, especially in that of the Hebrews themselves at Jerusalem. 3. Those who may be supposed to have continued a conscientious respect to the Judaical Sabbath, could be no otherwise persuaded of it, than were the Jews themselves in those days. But they all accounted themselves absolved in conscience from the law of the Sabbath, upon imminent danger in time of war, so that they might lawfully either fight or flee, as their safety did require. This is evident from the decree made by them under the Hasmonzans. And such imminent danger is now supposed by our Saviour; for he instructs them to forego all consideration of their enjoyments, and to shift merely for their lives. There was not, therefore any danger in point of conscience with respect to the Judaical Sabbath, to be then feared or prevented. But in general, those in whose hearts are the ways of God do know what an addition it is to the greatest of their earthly troubles, if they befal them in such seasons, as to deprive them of the opportunity of the sacred ordinances of God’s worship, and indispensably engage them in ways and works quite of another nature, when they stand in most need of these ordinances. There is, therefore, another auswer invented, namely, that our Lord Jesus in these words respected not the consciences of his disciples, but their trouble; and, therefore, joms the Sabbath day and the winter together, in directing them to pray for an ease and accommodation of that flight which was inevitable. For as the winter is unseasonable for such an occasion, so the law concerning the Sabbath was such, as that if any one travelled on that day above a commonly allowed Sabbath day’s journey, he was to be put to death. But neither is there any more appearance of truth in this pretence. For, 1. The power of capital punishments was before this time utterly taken away from the Jews, and all their remaining courts interdicted from proceeding many cause, wherein the lives of men were concerned. 2. The times intended were such, as wherein there was no course of law, justice, or equity amongst them, but all things were filled with rapine, confusion, and hostility, so that it is a vain imagination, that any cognizance was taken about such cases as journeying on the Sabbath. 3. The dangers they were in, had made it free to them, as_ to legal punishments, upon their own principles, as was declared; so that these cannot be the reasons of the caution here given. It is at least, therefore, most probable, that our Saviour speaks to his disciples upon a supposition of the perpetual obligation of the law of the Sabbath, that they should pray to be delivered from the necessity of a flight on the day whereon the duties of it were to be observed, lest it falling out otherwise, should prove a great aggravation of their distress.
§ 48. From these particular instances, we may return to the consideration of the law of the decalogue in general, and the perpetual power of exacting obedience wherewith it is accompanied. That in the Old Testament it 15 frequently declared to be universally obligatory, and hath the same efficacy ascribed to it, without putting in any exceptions to any of its commands or limitations of its number, I suppose will be granted. The authority of it is no less fully asserted in the New Testament, and that also absolutely without distinction, or the least intimation of excepting the fourth command, from what is affirmed concerning the whole. It is of the law of the decalogue that our Saviour treats, Matt. v.17—19. This he affirms, that he came not to dissolve, as he did the ceremonial law, but to fulfil it; and then affirms, that not one jot or tittle of it shall pass away. And making thereon a distribution of the whole into its several commands, he declares his disapprobation of them who shall break 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, ch. u. 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 God’s giving therlaw thereof, or else it may be extended to all Mosaic institutions, expressly 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 endeavoured to be given to them, I shall give them a new examination, and remove them out of our way. ᾿ς § 50. It is, then, objected in the first place, Disquisit. de Moralitate Sabbati, p. 7, ‘That the command for the observance 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.’
Answ. 1. The whole force of this argument consists in this, that time ~ is but a help, instrument, or circumstance of worship, and therefore, is not moral worship itself, 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 merely positive, so is the worship commanded, although 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 observance 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 itself 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 a holy rest to be observed unto God in his worship on such a day. And this, not a 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; ora stated day of a holy rest unto God in such a revolution of days 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 special 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 virtue 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 shown at large. And therefore, although any place, notwithstanding anything 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 enjoined. The day was before made known unto the Israelites in the station at Marah, or afterwards at Alush; 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 NAW7 oY MN 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, seing it only confirms the observance 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 special 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 prepositive articles, are redundant; and if at all emphatical, yet they do not at all limit, specify, or determine, see Ps. i. 4; Eccl. ii. 14; Ley. xvill. 5. The observation, therefore, that 7 is prefixed to naw, (which may possibly denote an excellency in the thing itself, 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 denied by any who ever aright considered the various use, and frequent redundancy of that prefix.
2. The Sabbath, or rest of a seventh day, was known and observed from the foundation of the world, as hath been proved. And, therefore, if from the prefix, 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 observance of the Sabbath to have been before in use, whether that use were only of late, or a few days before, or of more ancient times, even from the beginning of the world, the command concerning it may be well expressed by NAWT DY ΠΝ N33, ‘ 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 observance of that day precisely by virtue 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 God’s making the world in six days, and resting on the seventh; which requires no more, but that in the continual revolution of seven days, six being allowed unto work, one should be observed a sacred rest to God. These words, therefore, ‘ Remember the Sabbath day,’ referring to the primitive command and reason of it, as is afterwards declared in the body of the law, require 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 in the principles of our nature; it was necessary that the remembrance of it should beso expressly 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 to the singular necessity, use, and benefit of this holy observance, as also to that neglect and decay in its observance, 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 engaged. 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 a special determination and institution. And this special 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.
tinction 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 enjoined 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. Theseventh 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.
Answ. 1, These objections are framed against a distinction used by another learned person, about the Sabbath as absolutely commanded in the decalogue, and as enjoined to practise under the Old Testament. But neither he, nor any other sober person, ever fancied that there were two Sabbaths of old, one enjoined 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 enjoined absolutely in words expressive of the law of our creation, and rule of our moral dependence 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 virtue 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 always 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. xvi. Nor is there 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 enjoined in the decalogue; and the seventh only with respect unto an antecedent Mosaic 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 hath been cleared by many. And it seems evident to an impartial consideration. For the observance of one day in seven, belongs unto every covenant of God with man. And the decalogue is the invariable rule of man’s 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 first, 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 itself 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 obseryed) 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 observance 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 Palestine, 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 days, was sufficiently interrupted in the days of Joshua and Hezekiah, from allowing to think the observance of the seventh day to be moral. And it is a rule to judge of the intention of all laws divine and human, 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 days 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 days 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 a like 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 public worship of God. But as this would overthrow the pretension before mentioned, that there could be no moral command about time, which is but a circumstance of moral duties, so the limitation of that time to one day in seven is so evidently a perpetually binding law, that it will not be hard to prove the unchangeable obligation that is on all men to the observance of it, which is all, that for the substance is contended for. To avoid this it is now affirmed, (Disquisit. p. 14.) That, Morale quarti precepti est, non unum diem sed totum tempus vite nostre quantum id fieri potest, impenden dumesse cultui Dei, querendo regnum Dei et justitiam ejus, atque inserviendo edificationi proximi: quo pertinet ut Deo serviamus, ejus beneficia agnoscamus et celebremus, eum 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, in seeking his kingdom and the righteousness thereof, and in 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 testify our faith by our confession.’
ὁ 55. Answ. It is hard to discover how any of these things have the least respect unto the fourth commandment, much more how the morality of it should consist in them. Fr 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 sum and substance of the second table, expressed by our Saviour by ‘loving our neighbour as ourselves.’ 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 to 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 denied 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 shadow of goed 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 Sabbath therefore was merely ceremonial.’
Answ. 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 innocence, and while the covenant of works was in perfect force, wherein there was no respect to 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 analogy 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 bea free institution to prefigure, and as In a shadow to represent any thing spiritual or mystical, afterwards to be introduced, is not, nor can be proved. It was indeed originally a moral pledge of God’s rest, and of our interest therein, according to the tenor of the covenant of works; which things belong unto our relation unto God, by virtue of the law of our creation. It continueth to retain the same nature, with respect to the covenant of grace. When it had annexed to it, what applications it received to the state of the Mosaic Pedagogy, 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 itself 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.’
Answ. It will not be granted, that this is a sufficient analysis or distribu- tion of. the parts of this command. The principal subject-matter of it is omitted, namely, the observance of ‘one day in seven’ to the ends of a sacred rest. For we are required in it to sanctify the ‘Sabbath of the Lord our God,’ which was a seventh day in a hebdomadal revolution of days. 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 itself 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 bythe law of our creation we are to attend to in this world, that we may attend and apply ourselves to the worship of God, and solemnly express our universal dependence upon him in all things; a rest representing the rest of God-in his covenant with us, and observed as a pledge of our entering into his rest- by. virtue of that covenant, and according to the law of it; such as is the rest here enjoined, 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 enjoined unto us, on one day in seven; and in these things consists the morality of this precept, on account of which 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, to the sojemn worship of God to be required in this command, as is by all generally acknowledged; and let a position be practically advanced against this, which we insist on, namely, that ‘ one day in seven’ is the time determined and limited for that purpose, and we shall quickly perceive the mischieyous 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 days, and resting the seventh; and all guidance from that seemingly perpetual direction that is given us, of employing 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 to others, either to the church or to 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 and changeableness would hence ensue, what confusion this would cast all the disciples of Christ into, according to the prevalence of superstition or profaneness, in the minds of those who claim this power of determining and limiting the time of public worship, is evident unto all. The instance of | holydays as they are commonly called, will farther manifest what of itself lies naked under every rational eye. The institution and observance 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 to the church, as it is said, one church multiplies them without end, until they grow 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 special 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 than indeed they do. Let them come once soberly to join their opinion of their liberty and their practise together, actually rejecting the divine limitation of one day in seyen, and they will find their own consciences under more disorder than 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, than in any of those for the observance 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 custom of all churches. Α
§ 58. The words of the apostle Paul, Col. ii. 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 meat or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, (7 σαββατων) or of the Sabbaths, or Sabbath days; which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ. For hence they say it will follow, that there is nothing moral in the observance of the Sabbath; seeing it was a mere type and shadow, as were other Mosaical institutions; as also that it is absolutely abolished and taken away in Christ.
Answ: This place must be afterwards considered, I shall here only briefly speak unto it. And, 1. It is known and confessed, that at that time all Judaical observances of days, or the days which they religiously observed, whether feasts or fasts, weekly, monthly, or annual, were by themselves and by others, called their Sabbaths, as we have before evinced. And that kind of speech which was then in common use, is here observed by our apostle. Tt must therefore necessarily be allowed, that there were two sorts of Sabbaths amongst them. The first and principal was the weekly Sabbath, so called from the rest of God upon the finishing of his works. This being designed for sacred and religious uses, other days separated unto the same ends in general, came from their analogy thereunto, to be called Sabbaths also, yea, were so called by God himself, as hath been declared. But the distinction and difference between these Sabbaths was great. The one of them was ordained from the foundation of the world, before the entrance of sin, or giving of the promises, and so belonged to all mankind in general; the other were appointed in the wilderness, as a part of thé peculiar church worship of the Israelites, and-so belonged unto them only. The one of them was directly commanded in the decalogue, wherein the law of our creation was revived and expressed; the other have their institution expressly among the residue of ceremonial temporary ordinances. Hence they cannot be both comprised: under the same denomination, unless upon some reason ‘that is common to both sorts alike. So when God saith of them all, ‘You shall observe my Sabbaths,’ it is upon a reason common to them all, namely, that they were all commanded of God, which is the formal reason of our obedience, of what nature soever his commands are, whether moral or positive. Nor can both these sorts be here understood under the same name, unless it be with respect unto something that is common to both. Allow therefore the distinc- tions between them before mentioned, which cannot soberly be denied, and as to what they agree in, namely, what is or was in the weekly primary Sabbath of the same nature with those days of rest which were so called in allusion thereunto, and they may be allowed to have the same sentence given concerning them. That is, so far the weekly Sabbath may be said to be a shadow, and to be abolished.
2. It is evident, that the apostle in this place dealeth with them who endeavoured -to introduce Judaism absolutely, or the whole system of Mosaic ceremonies into the observance of the Christian church. Circumcision, their feasts and new moons, their distinctions of meats and drinks, he mentioneth directly in this place. And therefore he deals about these things so far as they were Judaical, or belonged unto the economy of Moses, and no otherwise. If any of them fell under any other consideration, so far as they did so, he designeth not to speak of them. Now, those things only were Mosaic, which being instituted by Moses, and figurative of good things to come, or the things which being of the same nature with the residue of his ceremonies, were before appointed, but accommodated by him to the use of the church which he built; such as sacrifices and circumcision. For they were all of them nothing else but an obscure adumbration of the things whereof Christ was the body. So far then as the weekly Sabbath had any additions made unto it, or limitation given of it, or directions for the manner of its observance, or respected the services then to be performed in it, and by all accommodated unto that dispensation of the covenant which the posterity of Abraham was then brought into, it was a shadow, and is taken away by Christ,..'Therewith falls its limitation to the seventh day, its rigorous observance, its penal sanction, being a sign between God and that people; in a word, every’ thing in it, and about it, that belonged unto the then present administration of the covenant, or was accommodated to the Judaical church or state. But now if it be proved that the septenary sacred rest was appointed in paradise, that it hath its foundation in the law of creation, that thereon it was observed antecedently unto the institution of Mosaic ceremonies, and that God renewed the command concerning it, in his system of moral precepts manifoldly distinguished from all ceremonial ordinances; so far, and in these respects it hath no concern in these words of the apostle.
3. It cannot be said, that the religious observance of one day in seven, or a holy rest unto God, is abolished by Christ, without casting a great reflection of presumption on all the churches of Christ in the world, I mean that now are or ever wereso; for they have all observed, anddo so observe such a day. I shall not now dispute about the authority of the church to appoint days unto holy or religious uses, to make holydays. Let it be granted to be, whatever any yet hath pretended or pleaded that itis. But this I say, that where God by his authority had commanded the observance of a day to himself, and the Lord Christ by the same authority hath taken off that command, and abolished that institution; it is not in the power of all the churches in the world, to take up the religious observance of that day to the same ends and purposes. It is certain that God did appoint that a Sabbath of rest should be observed unto him, and for the celebration of his solemn worship on one day in seven. The whole command of God to this effect is now pleaded to be dissolved, and all obligation from thence unto its observance to be abolished, in and by Christ. ‘Then say I, it is unlawful for any church or churches in the world to reassume this practice, and tu impose the observance ot it, on the disciples ot Christ. Be it that the church may appoint holydays of its own, that have no foundation in, nor relation to the law of Moses; yet doubtless it ought not to dig any of his ceremonies out of their grave, and impose them on the necks of the disciples of Christ. Yet so must it be thought to do by the constant practice and injunction hereof, on this hypothesis, namely, that the religious observance of one day in seven, is absolutely abolished by Christ, as a mere part of the law of commandments contained in ordinances, which was nailed to his cross and buried with him.
4, Herewith fall the arguments taken from the apostle’s calling the Sabbath in this place a shadow. For it is said, that nothing which is moral can be a shadow. Itis true, that which is moral, so far as it is moral, cannot be a shadow. We therefore say, that the weekly observance of a day of rest, from the foundation of the world, whereunto a general obligation was laid on all men unto its observance, the command whereof was a part of the moral law of God, was no shadow, nor is so called by the apostle, nor did typify 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 by some adjuncts annexed to 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 itself, of observing one day in seven as a 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 Mosaic, 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 theRabbins 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 days, and months, and times, which could respect only the Sabbatical years that were instituted by the law of Moses.
§ 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. ᾧ 7. The sense of the Jews concerning the original of the Sabbath rejected. § 8. The first appropriation of the law of the Sabbath to that people, Exod. xvi. ὁ 9. Their mistakes about the observance of it. ὃ 10. The giving of the law on mount Sinai, with the ends of it. ὁ 11. Nature of the fourth commandment thereon; what ceremonial in it. ᾧ 12. Renovation of the command of the Sabbath, Exod, xxxi. 12, 13. ὃ 13. Occasion hereof. § 14. Appropriations made of the Sabbath to the church of Israel in this renovation, § 15. The commandment renewed again, Exod. xxxiv. 21. New additions made to it. § 16. So also, Exod. xxxv.2,3. §17. The whole matter stated, Deut. ν, 13—15. ὃ 18. The conclusion.
§ 1. We have declared how the observance of a septenary sacred rest is required by the moral law, or the law of our creation. Now this is not absolutely and merely 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 threatenings, whence it had the nature of a covenant. By virtue of this law as a covenant, was the observance of a Sabbath prescribed and required, as a token and pledge of God’s 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 innocence, 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 a holy rest or Sabbath, can any reason be given, why it should be thought to be accommodated only to the admiistration of the covenant under the Old Testament after the giving 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 innocence, and was necessary thereunto, on the grounds before insisted on. Servile labour, with trouble, sweat, and yexation, was occasioned by the curse, Gen. iii, 17—19. The state also of servants and handmaids, such as was then, and is still in use, followed on the entrance of sin, though merely to serve, be no part of the curse, 1 Cor. vil. 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. xviii. 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 or subsistence in this world, in the state of innocence. For it is said expressly, that Ged put man into the garden, mnw>) may>, Gen. ii. 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 to the special ends of living unto him according to the covenant made with them,
There is nothing, therefore, in the fourth commandment, directing unto six days 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 frem 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 inquire what place, as such, it had in the Mosaic economy, 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 rendered 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 itself 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 to, or to guide us in our living unto God, according to the tenor of the first covenant.
There were, and are indeed general notions of good and evil indelibly implanted in the faculties of our souls, with a power of judging concerning our actions and moral practices, whether they are conformable to those notions, with respect unto the superior judgment 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 by the power of sin in the world, so that they were of little use as unto a due performance of covenant duties, indeed of none at all, in reference to any acceptance with God.
Wherefore God erecting his church, and renewing the knowledge of himself, and of man’s 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 observance among that people, was now from the promulgation of it on Mount Sinai, and the deliveran®e of it unto them thereon. Hence it was prefaced with motives peculiar to their state and condition, and its observance continually pressed on them afterwards, with arguments taken from their peculiar relation to 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 applied 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 mere 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 observance of it, as appointed in the decalogue, not as a material transcript of the law of nature merely, but as under its renovation to the church of Israel, is a groundless and unwarrantable going over into a part of abolished Judaism. For,:
§ 4. Secondly. The law was renewed as an ingredient into that economy 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 rigour of it, according to its whole law and tenor, to stand or fall absolutely by its promises or threatenings. 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 tied up to 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 for the relief and salvation of the elect, and bemg solemnly renewed to Abraham and his seed four hundred and thirty years before the giving of the law to his posterity, there was a blessed relief provided therein against the curse and threatenings annexed to the first covenant, for all them that betook themselves to it, and made use of it. Notwithstanding, I say, this renovation of the first covenant materially unto them, they were so far freed from its covenant terms, as that they had a relief provided against what they could not answer in it, with the consequences thereof.
2. From the nature and tenor of the covenant of works, so renewed amongst that people, there was begotten in their minds such a respect unto the rigour of its commands, the manner of their observance, or of obedience unto them, with the dread of its curse awfully denounced amongst them, as brought a servile and bondage frame of spirit upon them, in all wherein they had to do with God, by virtue of the law and rule of that covenant. This frame of spirit, as that which stands in direct opposition to the freedom and liberty purchased for us by Jesus Christ, to serve God in righteousness and holiness without fear all our days, is much insisted on by the apostle Paul, especially in his epistles to the Romans and Galatians. And in their observance of the Sabbath in particular, they were under this bondage, filling them with many scrupulous anxieties, which arose not from the law of the Sabbath itself, as originally given unto man in the state of innocence, but from the accommodation of the law thereof unto them, after the entrance of sin. And hereby their Sabbath rest became to them a great part of their wearying burdensome yoke, which is taken off in Christ.
3. This law was yet proposed to that church and people in the manner and form of a covenant, and not only¥materially, as a law or rule. This it had from the promises and threatenings which it was attended withal. There was adjoined to it, ‘Do this, and live;’ and, the ‘man that doth these things shall live in them;’ as also, ‘Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the law to do them.’ Not that it was hereby absolutely constituted a covenant, which eventually and finally they were to live or die by, (for, as we showed before, there was a relief provided against that condition in the promise,) but God gave the old covenant a special revival, though with respect to other ends than were originally intended in it. ence this covenant-form given to it, rendered the obedience of that people in a great measure servile, for it gendered unto bondage.
4. The law being attended with various explanations, and many ordinances of judgment, deduced from the principles of moral right and equity contained in it, was made the rule of the polity and government of that people, as a holy nation under the rule of God himself, who was their king. For their polity for the kind of it was a theocracy, over which God in an especial manner presided, as their Governor and King. And hence he affirms, that when they would choose another king over them after the manner of the nations, that they rejected him from reigning over them, though they resolved to adhere to his laws, and the manner of government prescribed to them. And this was peculiar to that people. Hence the Sabbath amongst them came to have an absolute necessity accompanying it, of an outward carnal observance, the neglect whereof, or acting any thing against the law of it, was to be punished with death.
5. Unto this renovation of the covenant in the manner, and for the ends expressed, there was added a typical church-state, with a great number of religious laws and ordinances, in themselves carnal and weak, but mystically significant of spiritual and heavenly things; and instructive how to use the promise that was before given, for their relief from the rigour and curse of the law or covenant now proposed unto them. And in all these things did the covenant of God made with that people in the wilderness consist. The foundation, matter, manner of administration, promises, and threatenings of it, were the same with the covenant of works; but they were all accommodated to their ecclesiastical and political estate, with especial respect unto their approaching condition in the land of Canaan, only there was, in the promise, new ends and a new use given to it, with a relief against its ngour and curse.
§ 4. On the account of the accessions that were thus made to the law, and especially to the observance of the Sabbath, is it often mentioned in the Scripture, as that which God had in a peculiar manner given to the Israelites, in whose special worship it had so great a place, many of their principal ordinances having a great respect to it; it being also the only means of keeping up the solemnity of natural worship in their synagogues among the people, Acts xv. 21. Thus God says concerning them, that ‘he gave them his Sabbaths in the wilderness, to be a sign between him and them, Ezek. xx. 10—12. And it is said of the same time, Neh. ix. 14, that ‘he made known unto them his holy Sabbath; that is, in the manner, and for the ends expressed. Nor is there any need why we should say, that ‘he gaye them’ intends no more but that he restored the knowledge of the Sabbath amongst them, the memory whereof they had almost lost, although that interpretation of the expression might be justified. For he says nowhere, that he then gave his Sabbaths, but that he then peculiarly gave them unto that people, and that for the ends mentioned. For the Sabbath was originally a moral pledge and expression of God’s covenant rest, and our rest in God. And now was it appointed of God, to be a sign of the special administration of the covenant which was then enacted. Hence it is said, that he gave it them as a perpetual covenant, Exod. xxxi. 16, that they might know him to be the Lord that sanctified them, ver. 13, that is, their God according to the tenor of that covenant, which was to continue throughout their generations, that is, until the new covenant should be brought in and established by Christ. Thus was it peculiarly given unto them; and so far as it was so, as it was a sign of their covenant, as it was then first given, so it is now abolished. For,
§ 5. The renovation and change of the covenant must and did introduce a change in the rest annexed to it. For a Sabbath, or a holy rest belongs to every covenant between God and man. But as for the kind and nature of it, as to its ends, use, and manner of observance, it follows the special kind or nature of that covenant wherein we at any season walk before God. Now, the original covenant of works being, in this representation of it on Sinai, not absolutely changed or abolished, but afresh represented to the people, only with a relief provided for the coyenanters against its curse and severity, with a direction how to use it to another end than was first given to it, it follows that the day of the Sabbatical rest could not be changed. And therefore, was the observance 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 God's making the world in six days, and resting on the seventh, did require. The observance of this day, therefore, was still continued among the Israelites, because the first covenant was again represented to 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 God’s 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 shown elsewhere. I say then, that the precise observance of the seventh day enjoined to the Israelites, had respect to the covenant of works, wherein the foundation of it was laid, as hath been demonstrated. And the whole controversy about what day is to be observed now, as a day of holy rest to the Lord, is resolved fully into this inquiry, namely, in what covenant we do walk before God.
§ 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 polity of the people under the government of God, as we before observed. For all the judgments relating to 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 to the Sabbath, Num. xv. 35, partly, that it might represent to 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. Dawn 1, ‘the hand of heaven’ is threatened 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, 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 to 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 rigour and curse of the whole law, as a covenant. And on these reasons, new commands were given for the observance of the Sabbath, new motives, ends, and uses were added thereto, every way to accommodate it to the dispensation of the covenant then in force, which was afterwards to be removed and taken away, and therewithal the Sabbath itself, so far as it had relation thereto. For the continuation of the seventh day precisely, belonged to the new representation that was made of the covenant of works. The representation of that covenant, with the sanction given to it, amongst the judgments of righteousness in the government of the people in the land of Canaan, which was the Lord’s, and not theirs, made it a yoke and burden; and the use it was put to amongst ceremonial observances, made it a shadow; in all which respects it is abolished by Christ. To say that the Sabbath, as given to the Jews is not abolished, is to introduce the whole system of Mosaic ordinances, which stand on the same bottom with it. And particularly the observance of the seventh day precisely, lieth as it were in the heart of that economy. 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 to them, or the renovation of its command, but its first institution absolutely, to have been in their station at Marah, Exod. xy. 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 to 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 to them only as a peculiar people. 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. xvi: The occasion of the whole is laid down, ver. 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 daily.’ 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 to them, if they had before no notion at all of a seventh day’s sacred rest They must 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 Kgypt; or knew not what belonged to the due observance 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 putrefy and stink, ver. 20, the rulers of the congregation, fearing some mistake in the matter, go and acquaint Moses with what was done amongst them, ver. 29. Hereon Moses replieth to them, ver. 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 is the first express mention of the Sabbath to, and amongst that eople. 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, ver. 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 merely aud solely unto them, and was the special limitation of the seventh day precisely, wherein we are not concerned, who do live on 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 Egypt they could not do. And into this institution, and the authority of it, must they resolve their practice, who adhere unto the observance of the seventh day precisely. For that day is no otherwise confirmed in the decalogue, but as it had relation hereto. -
§ 9. The Jews in this place fall into a double mistake about the practical observance 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 until the morning,’ ver. 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 ver. 29, ‘See, for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, therefore, he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days: 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, tliough the injunction itself 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, ver. 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 Egypt 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 a like nature. See Tacit. Hist., lib. 5.
§ 10. Not long after ensued the giving of the law on Sinai, Exod. xx. 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 comprised therein, nor can any one instance be given to the contrary; nor is there any thing directly and immediately in it, but what belongs to the Jaw: only God now made in it an especial accommodation of the law of their creation to that people, whom he was in a second work now forming for himself, Isa. xliiu. 19—21, li. 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 added thereto the remembrance of an especial benefit, that they, and they alone, were made partakers of: ‘ That brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, which he did in the pursuit of his special covenant with Abraham and his seed. This made the obligation to obedience unto the law, as promulgated on Mount Sinai, to belong to 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 to the Israelites; and sundry things were then and there mixed with it, that belonged to them alone. And, whereas the mercy, the consideration whereof he proposeth as the great motive to obedience, (which was his bringing them out of Egypt, with a view to his settling of them in the land of Canaan,) was a typical mercy, it gave the whole law a station in the typical church-state, into which they were now about to be brought. It altered not the nature of the things commanded, which, for the substance of them, were all moral; but it gave their obedience to it a new and typical respect, even as it was the tenor of the covenant made with them in Sinai, with respect to the promised land of Canaan, and their typical state therein.
§ 11. 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, ver. 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 because of the neglect of the observance of the Sabbath in former generations; and looking forward to the many difficulties that would arise among the people in the observance 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, beingyin like manner a positive enunciation. 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, ver. 9, 10. ‘Six days 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 to this people, to continue to the time of the full introduction and establishment of the new covenant. And this limitation of the seventh day, was but the renovation of the command when given to them in the way of an especial ordinance, Exod. xvi., and belongs not to the substance of the command itself. Yea, take the command itself without respect to its explications. elsewhere, and it expresseth no such limitation, though virtually, because of the precedent institution, Exod, Xvi. it is contained in it, Hence, thirdly, There is a prescription for the manner of its observance, accommodated to the state and condition of that people; and that two ways, 1. In comprehending things spiritual under things carnal, when yet the carnal are of no consideration in the worship of God, but as they necessarily attend upon things spiritual. Hence, that part of the command which concerns the manner of the observance of the Sabbath to be kept holy, is given out in a prohibition of bodily labour and work, ora command of bodily rest. But it is the expression of the rest of God, and his complacency in his works and covenant, with the sanctification of the day in obedience to his commands, in and by the holy duties of his worship, that are principally intended in it. And this he farther intimates afterwards to them, by his institution of a double sacrifice to be offered morning and evening on that day. 2. In the distribution of the people into the capital persons, with their relations, servants, and strangers, that God would have to live amongst them, and join themselves unto them. In the whole, it appears that the Sabbath is not now commanded to be observed, because it is the seventh day, as though the seventh day were first and principally intended in the command, which, as we have shown, that neither the substance of the command, nor the reason of it, with which the whole of the precept is begun and ended, will admit of; but the seventh day is commanded to be observed, because, by an antecedent institution it was made to be the Sabbath to that people, Exod. xvi., (whence it came to fall under the command, not primarily, but reductively,) as it had been on another account from the foundation of the world. ‘The Sabbath, therefore, is originally commanded as one day in seven, to be dedicated unto a holy rest. And the seventh day, if we respect the order of the days, is added, as that especial day on which God had declared that he would have at that time his Sabbath to be observed.
Now, all these things in the law of the Sabbath are Mosaic, namely, the obligation that arose to its observance, from the promulgation of the law unto that people on Sinai; the limitation of the day to the seventh or last of the week, which was necessary to that administration of the covenant, which God then made use of, and had a respect to a previous institution; the manner of its observance, suited to that servile and bondage frame of mind, which the giving of the law on Mount Sinai did generate in them, as being designed of God so to do; the ingrafting it into the system and series of religious worship then in force, by the double sacrifice annexed to it; with the various uses in, and accommodations it had to, the rule of government in the commonwealth of Israel; in all which respects it is abolished and taken away.
§ 12. God having disposed and settled the Sabbath as to the seventh day, and the manner of its observance, as a part of the covenant then made with that people, he thereon makes use of it in the same manner, and to the same ends, with the residue of the institutions and ordinances which he had then prescribed to them. This he doth, Exod. xxxi. 13—17. ‘And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak thou unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep; for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you. Ye shall keep the Sabbath therefore, for it is holy unto you. Every one that defileth it, shall surely be put to death; for whosoever doth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from amongst his people. Six days may work be done, but in the seventh is the Sabbath of rest holy — to the Lord: whosoever doth any work on the Sabbath day, shall surely be put to death. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.’ This is the next mention of the Sabbath amongst that people, wherein all that we have before laid down is fully confirmed. -God had now by Moses appointed other Sabbaths, that is monthly and annual sacred rests, to be observed to himself. With these he now joins the weekly Sabbath in allusion whereunto they have that name also given to them. He had sufliciently manifested a difference between them before; for the one he pronounced himself on Mount Sinai, as part of his universal and eternal law. The other he instituted by revelation to Moses, as that which peculiarly belonged to them. The one was grounded on a reason wherein they had no more concern or interest, than all the rest of mankind; namely, God’s rest from his works, and being refreshed, thereon, upon the creation of the world, and the establishment of his covenant with man; the other, all built on reasons peculiar to themselves, and that church-state whereinto they were admitted. But here the Sabbaths of both these kinds are brought under the same command, and designed to the same ends and purposes. Now the sole reason hereof lies in those temporary and ceremonial additions which we have manifested to have been made to the original law of the Sabbath, in its accommodation to their church-state, with the place which it held therein, as we shall see yet farther in particular.
§ 13. The occasion of this renovation of the command, was the building of the tabernacle, which was now designed, and forthwith to be undertaken. And with respect hereunto, there was a double reason for the repetition of this command. First. Because that work was for a holy end, and so upon the matter a holy work, and whereon the people were very intent; hence they might have supposed, that it would have been lawful: for them to have attended to it on the Sabbath days. This therefore God expressly forbids, that they might have no pretence for the transgression of his command. And therefore is the penalty annexed to it, so expressly here appointed and mentioned. Secondly. As the tabernacle now to be built, was the only seat of that solemn instituted worship, which God was now setting up amongst them, so the Sabbath being the great means of its continuance and performance, this they were now to be severely minded of, lest by their neglect and forgetfulness thereof, they might come to a neglect and contempt of all that worship, which was as it were built upon it. And as we observed before more than once, the weekly Sabbath being inserted into the economy of their laws, as to the matter of works and rest, it is comprised in the general with other feasts called Sabbaths also. ‘ Verily, my Sabbaths ye shall keep. And in this regard, they are all cast together by our apostle, Col. 11. 16, ‘or of the Sabbath days.’ And they who by virtue of this and the like commands, would bind us up to the Judaical Sabbath, do certainly lose both that, and all other ground for the observance of any Sabbath at all. for observe that in what respects it is joined with the other Sabbaths by Moses, in the same it is taken away with them by the apostle.,
ᾧ 14. There is a triple appropriation of the weekly Sabbaths in this place, made to the church of the Israelites. 1. In that the observance of it is required of them in their generations, that is, during the continuance of that church-state, which was to abide to the coming of Christ. For what was required of them in their generations, as it was required, was then to expire and be abolished. 2. That they were to observe it as a perpetual covenant, or as a part of that covenant which God then made with them, which is called everlasting, because it was to be so to them, seeing God would never make any other peculiar covenant with them. And whereas all the statutes and ordinances that God then gave them belonged unto, and altogether entirely made up that covenant, some of these, as this especial command for the Sabbath, and that of circumcision, are distinctly called the covenant, and ceased with it. 3. It was given unto them as an especial pledge of the covenant that God then made with them, wherein he rested in his worship, and brought them to rest therein in the land of Canaan, whereby they entered into God’s rest. Hence it is called a sign between them, Exod. xxxi. 13, 14, which is repeated and explained, Ezek. xx. 12. A sign it was, or an evident expression of the present covenant of God between them and him, not a sacramental or typical sign of future grace in particular, any otherwise than as their whole constitution, and their worship in general, whereof by these means it was made a part, were 50; that is, not in itself or its own nature, but as prescribed unto them.