The Third Exercitation

(1) Of the Causes of the Sabbath. (2) God the Absolute Original Cause of it. Distinction of Divine Laws into Moral and Positive. (3) Divine Laws of a mixt nature, partly Moral, partly Positive. (4) Opinion of some that the Law of the Sabbath was purely Positive. Difficulties of that Opinion. (5) Opinion of them who maintain the Observation of one Day in seven to be Moral. (6) Opinion of them who make the Observation of the seventh Day precisely to be a Moral Duty. (7) The second Opinion asserted. (8) The common Notion of the Sabbath explained. (9) The true Notion of it farther enquired into. (10) Continuation of the same Disquisition. (11) The Law of Nature wherein it consists. Opinion of the Philosophers. (12) Not comprized in the Dictates of Reason. No obliging Authority in them formally considered. (13) Uncertainty and disagreement about the Dictates of Reason. Opinions of the Magi, Zeno; Chrysippus, Plato; Archelaus, Aristippus, Carneades; Brennus, &c. (14) Things may belong to the Law of Nature not discoverable to the common Reason of the most. (15) The Law of Nature wherein it does really consist. (16) Light given to a septenary Sacred Rest, in the Law of Nature. (17) Farther Instances thereof. (18) The Observation of the Sabbath on the same foundation with Monogamy. (19) The seventh Day an appendix of the Covenant of Works. (20) How far the whole Notion of a Weekly Sacred Rest was of the Law of Nature. (21) Natural Light obscured by the Entrance of Sin. (22) The summ of what is proposed. (23) The enquiry about the Causes of the Sabbath renewed. (24) The Command of it in what sense a Law Moral, and how evidenced so to be. (25) To Worship God in Associations and Assemblies, a Moral Duty. (26) One Day in seven required to solemn Worship by the Law of our Creation. (27) What is necessary to warrant the Ascription of any Duty to the Law of Creation. (28) 1. That it be congruous to the known Principles of it. (29) 2. That it have a general Principle in the Light of Nature. (30) 3. That it be taught by the Works of Creation. (31) 4. Direction for its Observance, by superadded Revelation, no impeachment of it. (32) How far the same Duty may be required by a Law Moral, and by a Law Positive. (33) Vindication of the Truths laid down from an Objection. (34) Other Evidences of the Morality of this Duty. (35) Required in all states of the Church. (36) These various states. (37) Command for the Sabbath before the Fall. (38) Before, and at the giving of the Law, and under the Gospel. (39) Whether appointed by the Church. (40) Of the fourth Commandment in the Decalogue. (41) The proper subject of it. (42) The seventh Day precisely not primarily required therein. (43) Somewhat moral in it granted by all. (44) The matter of this Command, a Moral Duty by the Law of Creation. (45) The Morality of the Precept itself proved from its interest in the Decalogue by various Instances. (46) The Law of the Sabbath only preferred above all Ceremonial and Judicial Laws. (47) The Words of our Savior, Matthew 24:20, considered. (48) The whole Law of the Decalogue established by Christ. (49) Objections proposed. (50) The first answered. (51) The second answered. (52) The third answered. (53) One Day in seven, not the seventh Day precisely required in the Decalogue. (54) An Objection from the sense of the Law. (55) Answered. (56) (57) Other Objections answered. (58) Colossians 2:16, 17. considered.

We have fixed the Original of the Sabbatical Rest, according to the best light we have received into these things, and confirmed the Reasons of it with the consent of mankind. The next step in our progress must be an enquiry into its Causes. And here also we fall immediately into those difficulties and entanglements, which the various apprehensions of learned men promoted and defended with much diligence, have occasioned. I have no design to oppose or contend with any, although a modest examination of the Reasons of some, will be indispensibly necessary to me. All that I crave, is the liberty of proposing my own thoughts and judgement in this matter, with the Reasons and Grounds of them. When that is done, I shall humbly submit the whole, to the examination and judgement of all that call upon the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord, and ours.

§. 2 First, it is agreed by all, that God alone is the supreme, original, and absolute cause of the Sabbath. When ever it began, when ever it ends, be it expired, or still in force, of what kind soever were its institution, the law of it was from God. It was from Heaven; and not of men; and the will of God is the sole rule and measure of our observation of it, and obedience to him therein. What may, or may not be done, in reference to the observation of a day of holy rest by any inferior authority, comes not here under consideration. But whereas there are two sorts of laws whereby God requires the obedience of his rational creatures, which are commonly called moral and positive, it is greatly questioned and disputed, to whether of these sorts does belong the command of a sabbatical rest. Positive laws are taken to be such, as have no reason for them in themselves, nothing of the matter of them, is taken from the things themselves commanded, but do depend merely and solely on the sovereign will and pleasure of God. Such were the laws and institutions of the sacrifices of old; and such are those which concern the sacraments and other things of the like nature under the New Testament. Moral laws are such as have the reasons of them taken from the nature of the things themselves required in them. For they are good from their respect to the nature of God himself, and from that nature and order of all things, which he has placed in the creation. So that this sort of laws is but declarative of the absolute goodness of what they do require; the other is constitutive of it, as to some certain ends. Laws positive, as they are occasionally given, so they are esteemed alterable at pleasure. Being fixed by mere will and prerogative, without respect to any thing that should make them necessary antecedent to their giving, they may by the same authority at any time be taken away and abolished. Such I say are they in their own nature, and as to any firmitude that they have from their own subject matter. But with respect to God's determination, positive divine laws, may become eventually unalterable. And this difference is there between legal and evangelical institutions. The laws of both are positive only, equally proceeding from sovereign will and pleasure, and in their own natures equally alterable. But to the former, God had in his purpose fixed a determinate time and season, wherein they should expire, or be altered by his authority; the latter he has fixed a perpetuity and unchangeableness to, during the state and condition of his Church in this world. The other sort of laws are perpetual and unalterable in themselves, so far as they are of that sort, that is moral. For although a law of that kind may have an especial injunction with such circumstances as may be changed and varied, (as had the whole Decalogue in the Commonwealth of Israel) yet so far as it is moral, that is, that its commands or prohibitions, are necessary emergencies, or expressions of the good or evil of the things it commands or forbids, it is invariable. And in these things there is an agreement; unless sometimes through mutual oppositions men are chased into some exceptions or distinctions.

§. 3 To these two sorts do all divine laws belong, and to these heads they may be all reduced. And it is pleaded by some, that these kinds of laws are contradistinct; so that a law of one kind, can in no sense be a law in the other. And this doubtless is true reduplicatively, because they have especial formal reasons. As far, and wherein, any laws are positive, they are not moral; and as far as they are purely moral, they are not formally positive, though given after the manner of positive commands. Howbeit this hinders not but that some do judge, that there may be and are divine laws of a mixed nature. For there may be in a divine law, a foundation in, and respect to somewhat that is moral, which yet may stand in need of the superaddition of a positive command for its due observation to its proper end. Yes, the moral reason of things commanded, which arises out of a due natural respect to God, and the order of the universe, may be so deep and hidden, as that God who would make the way of his creatures plain and easy, gives out express positive commands for the observance, of what is antecedently necessary by the law of our creation. Hence a law may partake of both these considerations, and both of them have an equal influence into its obligatory power. And by this means sundry duties, some moral, some positive, are as it were compounded in one observance; as may be instanced in the great duty of prayer; hence the whole law of that observance becomes of a mixed nature, which yet God can separate at his pleasure, and taking away that which is positive, leave only that which is absolutely moral in force. And this kind of laws, which have their foundation in the nature of things themselves, which yet stand in need of further direction for their due observation, which is added to them by positive institution, some call moral positive.

§. 4 According to these distinctions of the nature of the laws which God expresseth his will in and by, are men's apprehensions different about the immediate and instrumental cause of the Sabbatical rest. That God was the author of it, is as was said, by all agreed. But say some, the law whereby he appointed it was purely positive, the matter of it being arbitrary, stated and determined only in the command itself; and so the whole nature of the law, and that commanded in it, changeable. And because positive laws did, and always do respect some other things besides and beyond themselves, it is pleaded that this law was Ceremonial and Typical; that is, it was an institution of an outward present religious observation, to signify and represent some thing not present, nor yet come; such were all the particulars of the whole system of Mosaical worship, whereof this law of the Sabbath was a part, and an instance. In brief, some say, that the whole law of the Sabbath was as to its general nature positive, and arbitrary, and so changeable; and in particular, Ceremonial and Typical, and so actually changed and abolished. But yet it is so fallen out, that those who are most positive in these assertions, cannot but acknowledge, that this law is so ingrafted into, and so closed up with somewhat that is moral and unalterable, that it is no easy thing to hit the joint aright, and make a separation of the one from the other. But concerning any other law expressly and confessedly Ceremonial, no such thing can be observed. They were all evidently and entirely arbitrary institutions, without any such near relation to what is moral, as might trouble any one to make a distinction between them. For instance; the law of Sacrifices has indeed an answerableness in it to a great principle of the law of nature; namely that we must honor God with our substance, and the best of our increase; yet that this might be done many other ways, and not by Sacrifice, if God had pleased so to ordain, every one is able to apprehend. It is otherwise in this matter; for none will deny, but that it is required of us in and by the law of nature, that some time be set apart and dedicated to God, for the observation of his solemn worship in the world. And it is plain to every one, that this natural dictate is inseparably included in the law of the Sabbath. It will therefore surely be difficult to make it absolutely and universally positive. I know some begin to whisper things inconsistent with this concession. But we have as yet the universal consent of all divines, ancient and modern, Fathers, Schoolmen and Casuists concurring in this matter. For they all unanimously affirm, that the separation of some part of our time to sacred uses, and the solemn honoring of God, is required of us in the light, and by the law of nature. And herein lies the fundamental notion of the law now enquired after. This also may be further added, that whereas this natural dictate for the observation of some time in the solemn worship of God, has been accompanied with a declaration of his will from the foundation of the world that this time should be one day in seven, it will be a matter of no small difficulty to find out what is purely positive therein.

§. 5 Others building on this foundation, that the dedication of some part of our time to the worship of God, is a duty natural or moral, as required by the law of our creation, (not that time in itself which is but a circumstance of other things, can be esteemed moral, but that our observation of time may be a moral duty) do add; that the determination of one day in seven, to be that portion of time so to be dedicated, is inseparable from the same foundation, and is of the same nature with it; that is, that the Sabbatical observation of one day's holy rest in seven, has a moral precept for its warranty, or that which has the nature of a moral precept in it; so that although the revolution of time in seven days, and the confining of the day to that determined season, do depend on Revelation and a positive command of God for its observance, yet on supposition thereof, the moral precept prevails in the whole, and is everlastingly obligatory. And there are some divines of great piety and learning, who do judge, that a command of God given to all men, and equally obligatory to all, respecting their manner of living to God, is to be esteemed a moral command, and that indispensable and unchangeable; although we should not be able to discover the reason of it in the light and law of nature. Nor can such a command be reckoned among them that are merely positive, arbitrary, and changeable, all which depend on sundry other things, and do not firstly affect men, as men in general. And it is probable, that God would not give out any such catholic command, which comprised not somewhat naturally good and right in it. And this is the best measure and determination of what is moral, and not our ability of discovering by reason what is so, and what is not; as we shall see afterwards.

§. 6 Moreover, there are some who stay not here; but contend that the precise observation of the seventh day in the Hebdomadal revolution, lies under a command moral and indispensable. For God they say, who is the sovereign Lord of us and our times, has taken by an everlasting law this day to himself for his honor and service; and he has therein obliged all men to a holy rest, not on some certain fixed and stated time, not on one day in seven originally, as the first intention of his command, but on the seventh day precisely, whereunto those other considerations of some stated and fixed time, and of one day in seven are consequential, and far from previous foundations of it. The seventh day, as the seventh day, is they say, the first proper object of the command; the other things mentioned of a stated time, and of one day in seven, do only follow thereon; and by virtue thereof belong to the command of the Sabbath, and no otherwise. Herein great honor indeed is done to the seventh day, above all other ordinances of worship whatever, even of the Gospel itself; but whether with sufficient warranty we must afterwards enquire. At present, I shall only observe, that this observation of the seventh day precisely, is resolved into the sovereignty of God, over us and our times, and into an occasion respecting purely the Covenant of Works; on which bottoms it is hard to fix it in an absolute unvariable station.

§. 7 It is the second opinion, for the substance of it, which I shall endeavor to explain and confirm; and therein prove a sacred sabbatical rest to God, of one day in seven, to be enjoined to all that fear him, by a law perpetual, and indispensable, upon the account of what is moral therein. The reason I say of the obligation of the law of the Sabbath is natural, and from there the obligation itself universal; however the declaration and determination of the day itself, depend on arbitrary revelation, and a law merely positive. These things being explained and confirmed, the other opinions proposed will fall under our consideration.

To obtain a distinct light into the truth in this matter, we must consider both the true notion of the sacred rest, as also of the law of our creation, whereby we affirm that fundamentally and virtually, it is required.

§. 8 The general notion of the Sabbath is, a portion of time set apart by divine appointment, for the observance and performance of the solemn worship of God. The worship of God is that which we are made for, as to our station in this world, and is the means and condition of our enjoyment of him in glory, wherein consists the ultimate end, as to us, of our creation. This worship therefore is required of us by the law of our creation, and it is upon the matter all that is required of us thereby, seeing we are obliged by it, to do all things to the glory of God. And therefore is the solemn expression of that worship required of us in the same manner. For the end of it being our glorifying him as God, and the nature of it consisting in the profession of our universal subjection to him, and dependance upon him, the solemn expression of it, is as necessary as the worship itself, which we are to perform. No man therefore ever doubted, but that by the law of nature we were bound to worship God, and solemnly to express that worship; for else therefore were we brought forth in this world? These things are inseparable from our natures, and where this order is disturbed by sin, we fall into another, which the properties of God on the supposition of transgressing our first natural order, do render no less necessary to his glory, than the other, namely that of punishment.

Moreover in this worship it is required by the same law of our beings that we should serve God with all that we do receive from him. No man can think otherwise. For is there any thing that we have received from God, that shall yield him no revenue of glory, whereof we ought to make no acknowledgement to him? Who dare once so to imagine? Among the things thus given us of God, is our time. And this falls under a double consideration in this matter. First, as it is an inseparable moral circumstance of the worship required of us; so it is necessarily included in the command of worship itself, not directly but consequentially. Secondly, it is in itself a part of our vouchsafements from God, for our own use and purposes in this world. So upon its own account firstly and directly, a separation of a part of it to God and his solemn worship is required of us. It remains only to inquire what part of time it is, that is and will be accepted with God. This is declared and determined in the fourth Commandment to be the seventh part of it, or one day in seven. And this is that which is positive in the command, which yet as to the foundation, formal reason, and main substance of it, is moral. And these things are true, but yet do not express the whole nature of the Sabbath, which we must farther inquire into.

§. 9 And first it must be observed, that wherever there is mention of a sabbatical rest, as enjoined to men for their observation, there is still respect to a rest of God that preceded it, and was the cause and foundation of it. In its first mention, God's rest is given as the reason of his sanctifying and blessing a day of rest for us, from where also it has its name (Genesis 2:2, 3). God blessed and sanctified the seventh day [in non-Latin alphabet], because he sabbatized thereon himself. And so it is expressed, and the same reason is given of it in the fourth Commandment. God wrought six days and rested the seventh; therefore must we rest (Exodus 20:11). The same is observed in the new creation as we shall see afterwards, and more fully in our exposition of Hebrews 4. Now that God may be said to rest, it is necessary that some signal work of his do go before. For rest in the first notion of it, includes a respect to an antecedent work or labor. And so it is every where declared. God wrought his works and finished them, and then rested. He made all things in six days, and rested on the seventh. And he that is entered into rest, ceases from his work. And both these, the work of God, and the rest of God must in this matter be considered. For the work of God, it is that of the old and whole creation, as is directly expressed (Genesis 2; Exodus 20), which I desire may be born in mind.

And this work of God may be considered two ways. First, naturally or physically, as it consisted in the mere production of the effects of his power, wisdom, and goodness. So all things are the work of God.

Secondly, morally; as God ordered and designed all his works to be a means of glorifying himself, in and by the obedience of his rational creatures. This consideration, both the nature of it, with the order and end of the whole creation do make necessary. For God first made all the inanimate, then animate and sensitive creatures in their glory, order and beauty. In, and on all these, he implanted a teaching and instructive power; for the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handy work (Psalm 19:1, 2), and all creatures are frequently called on to give praise and glory to him. And this expresseth that in their nature and order, which revealeth and manifesteth him, and the glorious excellencies of his nature, which man is to contemplate in their effects in them, and give glory to him. For after them all, was man made to consider and use them all, for the end for which they were made; and was a kind of mediator between God and the rest of the creatures by and through whom he would receive all his glory from them. This is that which our Apostle discourseth about (Romans 1:19, 20). The design of God as he declares, was to manifest and shew himself in his works to man. Man learning from them the invisible things of God, was to glorify him as God; as he disputes. The ordering and disposal of things to this purpose, is principally to be considered in the works of God, as his rest did ensue upon them.

Secondly, the rest of God is to be considered as that which completes the foundation of the sabbatical rest enquired after. For it is built on God's working and entering into his rest. Now this is not a mere cessation from working. It is not absolutely so; for God worketh hitherto. And the expression of God's rest is of a moral, and not a natural signification. For it consists in the satisfaction and complacency that he took in his works, as effects of his goodness, power and wisdom, disposed in the order, and to the ends mentioned. Hence as it is said, that upon the finishing of them, he looked on every thing that he had made, and behold it was very good (Genesis 1:31), that is, he was satisfied in his works and their disposal, and pronounced concerning them, that they became his infinite wisdom and power; so it is added, that he not only rested on the seventh day; but also that he was refreshed (Exodus 31:17), that is, he took great complacency in what he had done, as that which was suited to the end aimed at; namely the expression of his greatness, goodness and wisdom, to his rational creatures, and his glory through their obedience thereon; as on the like occasion he is said to rest in his love, and to rejoice with singing (Zephaniah 3:17).

Now in the work and rest of God thus stated, did the whole rule of the obedience of man originally consist; and therein was he to seek also his own rest, as his happiness and blessedness. For God had not declared any other way for his instruction in the end of his creation, that is his obedience to him, and blessedness in him, but in and by his own works and rest. This then is the first end of this holy rest. And it must always be born in mind, as that without which we can give no glory to God as rational creatures, made under a moral law in a dependance on him. For this he indispensibly requireth of us, and this is the sum of what he requireth of us; namely that we glorify him according to the revelation that he makes of himself to us, whether by his works of nature, or of grace. To the solemnity hereof, the day enquired after is necessary. To express these things is the general end of the sabbatical rest prescribed to us, and our observation. For so it is said, God wrought and rested, and then requires us so to do. And it has sundry particular ends or reasons. First, that we might learn the satisfaction and complacency that God has in his own works (Genesis 2:2, 3), that is, to consider the impressions of his excellencies upon them, and to glorify him as God on that account (Romans 1:19, 20, 21). For hence was man originally taught to fear, love, trust, obey, and honor him absolutely; even from the manifestation that he had made of himself in his works, wherein he rested. And had not God thus rested in them, and been refreshed upon their completing and finishing; they would not have been a sufficient means to instruct man in those duties. And our observation of the evangelical Sabbath, has the same respect to the works of Christ, and his rest thereon, when he saw of the travel of his soul and was satisfied, as shall afterwards be declared.

Secondly, another end of the original sabbatical rest was, that it might be a pledge to man of his rest in and with God. For in and by the law of his creation, man had an end, of rest, proposed to him, and that in God. This he was to be directed to, and encouraged to look after. Herein God by his works and rest had instructed him. And by giving him the Sabbath, as he gave him a pledge thereof, so he required of him, his approbation of the covenant way of attaining it, whereof afterwards. Hence Psalm 92, whose title is, [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], A Psalm, a Song for the Sabbath Day, which some of the Jews ascribe to Adam, as it principally consists in contemplations of the works of God, with holy admirations of his greatness and power manifested in them, with praises to him on their account; so it expresseth the destruction of ungodly sinners, and the salvation of the righteous, whereof in that day's rest they had a pledge. And this belonged to that state of man wherein he was created, namely, that he should have a pledge of eternal rest. Neither could his duty and capacity be otherwise answered or esteemed reasonable. His duty which was working in moral obedience, had a natural relation to a reward. And his capacity was such, as could not be satisfied, nor himself attain absolute rest, but in the enjoyment of God. A pledge hereof therefore belonged to his condition.

Thirdly, consideration was had of the way and means, whereby man might enter into the rest of God proposed to him. And this was by that obedience and worship of God, which the covenant wherein he was created required of him. The solemn expression of this obedience, and exercise of this worship, was indispensibly required of him and his posterity, in all their societies and communion with one another. This cannot be denyed, unless we shall say, that God making man to be a sociable creature, and capable of sundry relations, did not require of him to honor him in the societies and relations whereof he was capable, which would certainly overthrow the whole law of his creation, with respect to the end for which he was made, and render all societies sinful, and rebellious against God. Hereunto the Sabbatical Rest was absolutely necessary. For without some such rest fixed, or variable, those things could not be. This is a time or season, for man to express and solemnly pay that homage which he owes to his Creator. And this is by the most esteemed the great, if not the only end of the Sabbath. But it is evident, that it falls under sundry precedent considerations.

§. 10 These being the proper ends and reasons of the original Sabbatical Rest, which contain the true notion of it, we may nextly enquire after the law whereby it was prescribed and commanded. To this purpose we must first consider the state wherein man was created, and then the law of his creation. And for the state and condition wherein man was created it falls under a threefold consideration. For man may be considered either (1.) Absolutely as a rational creature; or (2.) As made under a covenant of rewards and punishments; or (3.) With respect to the especial nature of that covenant.

First, he was made a rational creature, and thereby necessarily in a moral dependance on God. For being endowed with intellectual faculties, in an immortal soul, capable of eternal blessedness or misery, able to know God, and to regard him as the first cause and last end of all, as the author of his being, and object of his blessedness, it was naturally and necessarily incumbent on him, without any farther considerations, to love, fear, and obey him, to trust in him as a preserver and rewarder; and this the order of his nature, called the image of God, enclined and inabled him to. For it was not possible, that such a creature should be produced, and not lye under an obligation to all those duties, which the nature of God, and his own, and the relation of the one to the other, made necessary. Under this consideration alone, it was required by the law of man's creation, that some time should be separated to the solemn expression of his obedience, and due performance of the worship that God required of him. For in vain was he indued with intellectual faculties, and appointed to society, if he were not to honor God, by them, in all his relations, and openly express the homage which he owed him. And this could not be done, but in a time appointed for that purpose; the neglect whereof must be a deviation from the law of the creation. And as this is generally acknowledged; so no man can fancy the contrary. Here then do we fix the necessity of the separation of some time to the ends of a Sabbatical Rest; even on the nature of God and man, with the relation of one to the other. For who can say, no part of our time is due to God, or so to be disposed.

Secondly, man in his creation with respect to the ends of God therein, was constituted under a covenant. That is the law of his obedience was attended with promises and threatnings, rewards and punishments, suited to the goodness and holiness of God. For every law with rewards and recompences annexed, has the nature of a covenant. And in this case, although the promise wherewith man was incouraged to obedience, which was that of eternal life with God, did in strict justice exceed the worth of the obedience required, and so was a superadded effect of goodness and grace, yet was it suited to the constitution of a covenant meet for man to serve God in to his glory; and on the other side, the punishment threatned to disobedience, in death and an everlasting separation from God, was such as the righteousness and holiness of God, as his supreme governor, and Lord of him and the covenant, did require. Now this covenant belonged to the law of creation. For although God might have dealt with man in a way of absolute sovereignty, requiring obedience of him without a covenant of a reward infinitely exceeding it; yet having done so in his creation, it belongs to, and is inseparable from the law thereof. And under this consideration, the time required in general for a rest to God, under the first general notion of the nature and being of man, is determined to one day in seven. For as we shall find, that in the various dispensations of the covenant with man, and the change of its nature, yet so long as God is pleased to establish any covenant with man, he has, and does invariably require one day in seven to be set apart to the assignation of praise and glory to himself; so we shall see afterwards, that there are indications of his mind to this purpose in the covenant itself.

Thirdly, man is to be considered with especial respect to that covenant under which he was created, which was a Covenant of Works. For herein rest with God was proposed to him, as the end or reward of his own works, or of his personal obedience to God, by absolute strict righteousness and holiness. And the peculiar form of this covenant, as relating to the way of God's entring into it, upon the finishing of his own works, designed the seventh day from the beginning of the creation, to be the day precisely for the observation of an holy rest. As men then are always rational creatures, so some portion of time is by them necessarily to be set apart to the solemn worship of God. As they are under a covenant, so this time was originally limited to one day in seven. And as the covenant may be varied, so may this day also, which under the Covenant of Works, was precisely limited to the seventh day; and these things must be further illustrated and proved.

§. 11 This was the state and condition wherein man was originally created. Our next enquiry is after the law of his creation, commonly called the Law of Nature, with what belongeth thereunto, or what is required of us, by vertue thereof. Now by the Law of Nature most understand the dictates of right reason, which all men, or men generally consent in, and agree about. For we exclude wholly from this consideration the instinct of brute creatures, which has some appearance of a rule to them. So Hesiod of old determined this matter, speaking of them.

They devour one another, because they have no right or law among them. Hence the Prophet complaining of force and violence among men, with a neglect of right, justice and equity, says, men are as the fishes of the sea; as creeping things that have no Ruler over them (Habakkuk 1:14). They devour one another without regard to rule or right. As he in Varro.

Natura humanis omnia sunt paria. Qui pote plus, urget; pisces ut saepe minutos Magnus' comest, ut aves enecat accipiter.

Most learned men therefore conclude, that there is no such thing as Jus, or Lex Naturae among irrational creatures; and consequently, nothing of good or evil in their actions. But the consent of men in the dictates of reason, is esteemed the Law of Nature. So Cicero Tuse. 1. Omni in re consensio omnium Gentium Lex Naturae putanda est. The common consent of all nations in any thing, is to be thought the Law of Nature. And Aristotle also, Rhetoric. lib. 1. cap. 14. calls it, [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩]; a common law, unwritten, pertaining to all, whose description he adds; [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩]. That which is common, is according to nature; for there is somewhat which all men think, and this is common right or injustice by nature, although there should be neither society nor compact between them. And this he confirms out of Empedocles; that it is that [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩], not which is just to some, and unjust to others.

But it is right among all, spread out with immense light by the broad ruling skie. The like he affirms in his Ethicks, lib. 5. cap. 10. defining it to be, that which [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩]; that which has always, or every where the same force or power, and does not seem or not seem so to be. This his expositors affirm to be, [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩]; among the most of men, who live according to the light of nature, with the principles of it uncorrupted. This [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩], is the same with [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩] according to the dictates of reason. So [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩] right reason is the same with many, as jus naturae, or naturale. Tully in his first de Legib. pursues this at large. Est unum jus, says he, quo devincta est hominum societas; & quod Lex constituit una. Quae Lex est recta Ratio prohibendi & imperandi. There is one common right, which is the bond of humane society, and which depends on one law. And this law is the right reason of forbidding and commanding. This then is generally received; namely that the Law of Nature consists in the dictates of reason, which men sober, and otherwise uncorrupted, do assent to, and agree in. But there are sundry things which will not allow us to acquiesce in this description of it.

§. 12 First, the Law of Nature, is a constant and perfect law. It must be so, because it is the fountain and rule of all other laws whatever. For they are but deductions from it, and applications of it. Now to a compleat law it is required, not only that it be instructive, but also that it have a binding force, or be coactive. That is, it does not only teach, guide, and direct what is to be done, perswading by the reason of the things themselves which it requires; but also it must have authority to exact obedience; so far as that those who are under the power of it, can give themselves no dispensation from its observance. But thus it is not with these dictates of reason. They go no farther than direction and perswasion. And these always have, and always will have a respect to occasions, emergencies, and circumstances. When these fall under any alterations, they will put reason on new considerations of what it ought to determine with respect to them. And this the nature of an universal law will not admit. Whatever then men determine by reason, they may alter on new considerations, such as occasioned their original determination. I do not extend this to all instances of natural light, but to some only, which sufficeth to demonstrate, that the unalterable Law of Nature does not consist in these dictates of reason only. Suppose men do coalesce into any civil society, on the meer dictates of reason, that it is meet and best for them so to do; if this be the supream reason thereof, no obligation ariseth from there to preserve the society so entred into, but what is liable to a dissolution from contrary considerations. If it be said, that reason dictates and commands in the name of God, from where an indissoluble obligation attends it; it will be answered, that this introduceth a new respect, which is not formally included in the nature of reason it self. Let a man indeed use, and improve his own reason without prejudice; let him collect what resolutions, determinations, instructions, laws, have proceeded from the reason of other men; it will both exceedingly advance his understanding, and inable him to judge of many things that are congruous to the light and Law of Nature. But to suppose the Law of Nature to consist in a systeme or collection of such instances and observations, is altogether unwarrantable.

§. 13 The event of things, in the disagreement of the wisest men about the dictates of reason, utterly everts this opinion. The law of nature whatever it be, must in itself be one, uniform, unalterable, the same in and to all. For by these properties it differs from all other laws. But if it have no higher, nor more noble original to be resolved into, but mere humane reason, it will be found, if not in all things, yet in most, fluctuating and uncertain. For about what is agreeable to reason in things moral, and what is not, there have been differences innumerable from time immemorial, and that among them who searched most diligently after them; and boasted themselves to be wise upon their self-pleasing discoveries. This gave the greatest occasion, to the two hundred eighty eight sects of philosophers, as Austin reports them out of Varro, who was disertissimus Nepotum Romuli (lib. 19. de Civit. Dei). Yes, and some of the most learned and contemplative authors, did not only mistake in many instances of what natural light required, but also asserted things in direct opposition to what is judged so to be. The saying produced out of Empedocles by Aristotle before mentioned, is to prove that the killing of any living creature is openly against the universally prevailing law of nature. Others maintained such things to be natural, as the most did abominate. Incest in the nearest instances, with sodomy, were asserted lawful by the Magi, and some of the most learned Greeks, as Zeno and Chrysippus. And it was the judgement of Theodorus, that a wise man ought, [in non-Latin alphabet], as Hesychius Illustrius reports in his life; he thought that neither theft, nor adultery, nor sacrilege, had any thing evil or filthy in them in their own nature, so that a wise man ought to have respect to them, according to circumstances and occasions. Plato's promiscuous use of wives, was confirmed by law at Sparta. And Archelaus at once determined, [in non-Latin alphabet], as Diogenes in his life, who likewise reports the same of Aristippus and Canreades. Naturally they thought, nothing just or unjust, good or evil, but by virtue of some arbitrary law. And there are yet those in the world, partakers of humane nature, in common with us all, who know no other rule of their actions towards others, but power; as the Cannibals, and those Indians, who suppose they may justly spoil all that are afraid of them. Yes, some, who of late have pretended a severe inquisition into these things, seem to incline to an opinion, that power and self advantage, are the rule of men's conversation among themselves in this world. So it was the principle of Brennus in his time the terror of Europe, that there was no other law of nature, but that the weaker should obey the stronger. And the commander of the Gauls who besieged the Roman Capitol, when he was on a composition to depart upon the giving to him such a weight of gold, threw in his sword into the scale against it, giving no other reason for what he did, but Vae Victis. Neither will another rule which they had of assigning things to the law of nature hold firm, namely a general usage of mankind from time immemorial. This Antigona pleads in Sophocles for her burying of Polynices.

This right arose not to day nor yesterday, but was in force ever of old, nor does any man know from where it arose. For all nations from beyond the records of the original of things, had consented into practices directly contrary to the light of nature; as is now acknowledged. And hence were all the disputes of old, about the nature, bounds and ends of good and evil, duty and vice, honest and filthy, just and unjust, that could never be determined. This Plato observing affirms in his Phaedo, that if any one name either silver or iron presently all men agree, what it is that is intended; but if they speak of that which is just and good, presently we are at variance with others, and among ourselves. So great uncertainty is there in humane reason, under its best natural improvements, in its judgement what does or does not belong to the principles and condition of our nature; so far is it from being comprehensive of the whole law thereof.

§. 14 When therefore we plead any thing to belong to, or to proceed from the law of nature, it is no impeachment of our assertion, to say, that it does not appear so to the common reason of mankind, or that right reason has not found it out or discovered it, provided it contain nothing repugnant thereunto. For it will never be universally agreed, what does so appear to the common reason of all, nor what is, has been, or may be discovered thereby. And although it should be true, which some say, that moral and natural duties depend on, and have their formal reason from the nature of God and man, yet it does not from there follow, that we do, or may, by the sole light of nature, know what does so arise, with the due bounds and just consequences of it. But there is, as we shall see something yet farther required, in and to the law of nature, which is the adequate rule of all such duties. I shall not therefore endeavour to prove that the mere dictates of reason do evince a sacred hebdomadal rest; as knowing that the law of nature to which we say it does belong, does not absolutely consist in them; nor did they ever since the Fall steadily and universally, as acted in men possessed of reason, either comprehend or express, all that belongs thereunto.

§. 15 By the Law of Nature then I intend, not a Law which our Nature gives to all our Actions; but a Law given to our Nature, as a Rule and Measure to our Moral actions. It is Lex naturae Naturantis, and not naturae naturatae. It respects the Efficient Cause of Nature, and not the Effects of it. And this respect alone can give it the Nature of a Law; that is an obliging Force and Power. For this must be always from the Act of a Superior; seeing Par in Parem jus non habet; equals have no Right one over another. This Law therefore is that Rule which God has given to humane Nature, in all the individual partakers of it, for all its Moral actions, in the state and condition wherein it was by him created and placed, with Respect to his own Government of it, and Judgement concerning it; which Rule is made known in them and to them, by their inward constitution, and outward condition, wherein they were placed of God. And the very Heathens acknowledged, that the common Law of Mankind was God's Prescription to them. So Tully, 2. de Legib. Hanc video sapientissimorum fuisse sententiam, Legem neque hominum ingeniis excogitatam; neque scitum aliquod fuisse populorum, sed aeternum quiddam quod universum mundum regeret, imperandi prohibendique sapientia. Ita principem legem illam & ultimam, mentem dicebant omnia ratione cogentis, aut vetantis Dei. Take this Law therefore actively, and it is the will of God commanding; take it passively, and it is the conscience of man complying with it; take it instrumentally, and it is the inbred notions of our minds, with other Documents from the works of God proposed to us. The Supreme Original of it, as of all Authority, Law, and Obligation is the Will of God, constituting appointing, and ordering the nature of things. The means of its Revelation is the Effect of the Will, Wisdom, and Power of God, creating man and all other things wherein he is concerned, in their Order, Place, and Condition. And the Observation of it, as far as individual Persons are therein concerned, is committed to the care of the Conscience of every man, which naturally is the mind's acting itself towards God as the Author of this Law.

§. 16 These things being premised, we shall consider what Light is given to this Sacred Duty from the Law of our Creation. The first End of any Law is to instruct, direct, and guide them in their duty, to whom it is given. A Law which is not in its own Nature instructive and directive, is no way meet to be prescribed to Rational Creatures. What has an Influence upon any creature of any other kind, if it be internal is Instinct, and not properly a Law; if it be external, it is Force and Compulsion. The Law therefore of Creation comprized every thing, whereby God instructed man, in the creation of himself, and of the Universe, to his Works, or Obedience, and his Rest or Reward. And whatever tended to that End, belonged to that Law. It is then as has been proved, unduly confined to the ingrafted Notions of his mind, concerning God, and his Duty towards him, though they are a principal part thereof. Whatever was designed to give improvement to those Notions, and his natural Light, to excite or direct them, I mean in the Works of Nature, not superadded positive Institutions, does also belong thereunto. Therefore the whole Instruction that God intended to give to man, by the Works of Creation, with their Order and End, is as was said, included herein. What he might learn from them, or what God taught him by them, was no less his Duty, than what his own inbred Light directed him to (Romans 1:18, 19, 20). Thus the framing of the world in six days, in six days of Work, was intended to be instructive to man, as well as the consideration of the things materially that were made. God could have immediately produced All out of Nothing, [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], in the shortest measure of Time conceivable. But he not only made all things for himself, or his glory, but disposed also the Order of their Production to the same End. And herein consisted part of that Covenant Instruction which he gave to man in that condition wherein he was made, that through him he might have glory ascribed to him, on the Account of his Works themselves, as also of the Order and Manner of their Creation. For it is vain to imagine, that the world was made in six days, and those closed with a Day of Rest, without an especial respect to the Obedience of Rational Creatures, seeing absolutely with respect to God himself, neither of them was necessary. And what he intended to teach them thereby, it was their duty to enquire and know. Hereby then man in general was taught Obedience and Working before he entered into Rest. For being created in the Image of God, he was to conform himself to God. As God wrought before he rested, so was he to work before his Rest; his condition rendering that working in him Obedience, as it was in God, an Effect of sovereignty. And by the Rest of God, or his Satisfaction and Complacency in what he had made and done, he was instructed to seek Rest with God, or to enter into that Rest of God, by his compliance with the Ends intended.

§. 17 And whereas the innate light and principles of his own mind informed him, that some time was to be set apart to the solemn worship of God, as he was a rational creature made to give glory to him; so the instruction he received by the works and rest of God, as made under a covenant, taught him, that one day in seven was required to that purpose, as also to be a pledge of his resting with God. It may be, it will be said, that man could not know, that the world was made in six days, and that the rest of God ensued on the seventh, without some especial revelation. I answer (1.) That I know not. He that knew the nature of all the creatures, and could give them names suited thereunto upon his first sight and view of them, might know more of the order of their creation, than we can well imagine. For we know no more in our lapsed condition, what the light of nature directed man to as walking before God in a covenant, than men merely natural do know of the guidance and conduct of the light and law of grace, in them who are taken into a New Covenant. (2.) However, what God instructed him in, even by revelation, as to the due consideration and improvement of the things that belonged to the law of his creation, that is to be esteemed as a part thereof. Institutions of things by especial revelation that had no foundation in the law or light of nature, were merely positive; such were the commands concerning the trees, of life, and of the knowledge of good and evil. But such as were directive of natural light, and of the order of the creation, were moral, and belonged to the general law of obedience. Such was the especial command given to man to till and keep the garden (Genesis 2:15), or to dress and improve the place of his habitation. For this in general the law of his creation required. Now this God did, both as to his works and his rest. Neither do I know any one as yet, that questions whether Adam and the Patriarchs that ensued before the giving of the law knew that the world was created in six days. Though some seem to speak doubtfully hereof, and some by direct consequent deny it, yet I suppose that hitherto it passes as granted. Nor have they who dispute that the Sabbath was neither instituted, known, nor observed before the people of Israel were in the wilderness, once attempted to confirm their opinion with this supposition, that the Patriarchs from the foundation of the world, knew not that the world was made in six days; which yet alone would be effectual to their purpose. Nor on the other side, can it be once rationally imagined, that if they had knowledge hereof, and therewithal of the rest which ensued thereon, that they had no regard to it in the worship of God.

§. 18 And thus was the Sabbath, or the observation of one day in seven as a sacred rest, fixed on the same moral grounds with monogamy, or the marriage of one man to one only woman at the same time; which from the very fact and order of the creation, our Savior proves to have been an unchangeable part of the law of it. For because God made them two single persons male and female, fit for individual conjunction, he concludes, that this course of life they were everlastingly obliged not to alter, nor transgress. As therefore men may dispute that polygamy is not against the law of nature, because it was allowed and practiced by many, by most of those who of old observed and improved the light and rule thereof to the uttermost; when yet the very factum and order of the creation is sufficient to evince the contrary; so although men should dispute, that the observation of one day's sacred rest in seven, is not of the light nor law of nature, all whose rules and dictates they say, are of an easy discovery, and prone to the observation of all men, which this is not; yet the order of the creation, and the rest of God that ensued thereon, is sufficient to evince the contrary. And in the renewing of the law upon Mount Sinai, God taught the people not only by the words that he spake, but also by the works that he wrought. Yes, he instructed them in a moral duty, not only by what he did, but by what he did not. For he declares, that they ought to make no images of, or to him, because he made no representation of himself to them, they saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake to them in Horeb out of the midst of the fire (Deuteronomy 4:15, 16).

§. 19 But now, to shut up this discourse; whereas the covenant which man originally was taken into, was a Covenant of Works; wherein his obtaining rest with God, depended absolutely on his doing all the work he had to do in a way of legal obedience, he was during the dispensation of that covenant, tied up precisely to the observation of the seventh day, or that which followed the whole work of creation. And the seventh day, as such, is a pledge and token of the rest promised in the Covenant of Works and no other. And those who would advance that day again into a necessary observation, do consequentially introduce the whole Covenant of Works, and are become debtors to the whole law. For the works of God which preceded the seventh day precisely, were those whereby man was initiated into, and instructed in the Covenant of Works; and the day itself was a token and pledge of the righteousness thereof; or a moral and natural sign of it, and of the rest of God therein, and the rest of man with God thereby. And it is no service to the Church of God, nor has any tendency to the honor of Christ in the Gospel, to endeavor a reduction of us to the Covenant of Nature.

§. 20 Thus was man instructed in the whole notion of a weekly sacred rest, by all the ways and means which God was pleased to use in giving him an acquaintance with his will, and that obedience to his glory which he expected from him. For this knowledge he had partly by the law of his creation as innate to him or concreated with the principles of his nature, being the necessary exurgency of his rational constitution; and partly by the works and rest of God, thereon proposed to his consideration, both firmed by God's declaration of his sanctification of the seventh day. Hence did he know, that it was his duty to express and celebrate the rest of God, or the complacency that he had in the works of his hands in reference to their great and proper end, or his glory, in the honor, praise and obedience of them to whose contemplation they were proposed, for those ends. This followed immediately from the time spent in the creation, and the rest that ensued thereon, which were so ordered for his instruction, and not from any other cause or reason taken either from the nature of God, or of the things themselves; which required neither six days to make the world in, nor any rest to follow thereon. For that rest was not a cessation from working absolutely, much less merely so. Hence did he learn the nature of the covenant that he was taken into; namely, how he was first to work in obedience, and then to enter into God's rest in blessedness. For so had God appointed, and so did he understand his will, from his own present state and condition. Hence was he instructed to dedicate to God, and his own more immediate communion with him, one day in a weekly revolution, wherein the whole law of his creation was consummate, as a pledge and means of entering eternally into God's rest, which from hence he understood to be his end and happiness. And for the sanctification of the seventh day of the week precisely, he had it by revelation, or God's sanctification of it, which had to him the nature of a positive law, being a determination of the day suited to the nature and tenor of that covenant wherein he walked with God.

§. 21 And by this superadded command or institution, the mind of man was confirmed in the meaning and intention of his innate principles, and other instructions to the same purpose in general. All these things, I say, the last only excepted, was he directed to, in and by the innate principles of light and obedience, wherewith the faculties of his soul were furnished, every way suited to guide him in the whole of the duty required of him; and by the farther instruction he had from the other works of God, and his rest upon the whole. And although it may be we cannot now discern, how in particular his natural light might conduct and guide him to the observance of all these things, yet ought we not therefore to deny that so it did, seeing there is evidence in the things themselves, and we know not well what that light was, which was in him. For although we may have some due apprehensions of the substance of it, from its remaining ruins and materials in our lapsed condition, yet we have no acquaintance with that light and glorious luster, that extent of its directive beams which it was accompanied withal, when it was in him as he came immediately from the hand of God, created in his image. We have lost more by the Fall, than the best and wisest in the world can apprehend, while they are in it; much more than most will acknowledge, whose principal design seems to be, to extenuate the sin and misery of man, which issues necessarily in an undervaluation of the love and grace of Jesus Christ. But if a natural or carnal man cannot discern how the Spirit or grace of the New Covenant, which succeeds into the room of our first innate light, as to the ends of our living to God's glory in a new way, directs and guides those in whom it is, to the observance of all the duties of it; let us not wonder if we cannot easily and readily comprehend the brightness and extent, and conduct of that light, which was suited to an estate of things that never was in the world, since the Fall, but only in the Man Christ Jesus; whose wisdom and knowledge in the mind and will of God, even thereby, without his superadded peculiar assistances, we may rather admire, than think to understand.

§. 22 Thus then were the foundations of the old world laid, and the covenant of man's obedience established, when all the sons of God sang for joy; even in the first rest of God, and in the expression of it by the sanctification of a sacred rest, to return to him a revenue of glory, in man's observance of it. And on these grounds, I do affirm that the weekly observation of a day to God for Sabbath ends, is a duty natural and moral, which we are under a perpetual and indispensable obligation to; namely, from that command of God, which being a part of the law of our creation is moral, indispensable, and perpetual. And these things with the different apprehensions of others about them, and oppositions to them, must now be further explained, and considered. For that we now enter upon, namely, the consideration of the judgment and opinions of others about these things, with the confirmation of our own.

§. 23 In the enquiry after the causes of the Sabbath, the first question usually insisted on, is concerning the nature of the law, whereby its observation is commanded. This some affirm to be moral, some only positive, as we have shewed before. And many disputes there have been about the true notion and distinction of laws moral, and positive. But whereas these terms are invented to express the conceptions of mens minds, and that of moral, at least, includes not any absolute determinate sense in the meaning of the word, those at variance about them, cannot impose their sense and understanding of them upon one another. For seeing this denomination of moral, applied to a law, is taken from the subject matter of it, which is the manners or duties of them to whom the law is given, if any one will assert that every command of God, which respects the manners of men, that is of all men absolutely as men, is moral, I know not how any one can compel him to speak or think otherwise, for he has his liberty to use the word in that sense which he judgeth most proper. And if it can be proved, that there is a law, and ever was, binding all men universally to the observation of an hebdomadal sacred rest, I shall not contend with any, how that law ought to be called, whether moral or positive. This contest therefore I shall not engage into, though I have used, and shall yet further use those terms in their common sense and acceptation. My way shall be plainly to enquire, what force there is in the law of our creation to the observation of a weekly Sabbath, and what is superadded thereunto by the vocal declaration of the will of God concerning it.

§. 24 And here in the first place it is generally agreed, so that the opposition to it is not considerable, nor any way deserving our notice, that in and by the light of nature, or the law of our creation, some time ought to be separated to the observance of the solemn worship of God. For be that worship what it will, merely natural, or any thing superadded by voluntary and arbitrary institutions, the law for its observance is natural, and requires that time be set apart for its celebration; seeing in time it is to be performed. When there was but one man and woman, this was their duty; and so it continued to be the duty of their whole race and posterity, in all the societies, associations and assemblies whereof they were capable. But the first object of this law or command is the worship of God itself; time falls under it only consequentially and reductively. Therefore the law of nature does also distinctly respect time itself. For we are bound thereby to serve God with all that is ours, and with the first fruits of our substance in every kind. Somewhat of whatever God has given to us, is to be set apart from our own use, and given up absolutely to him, as an homage due to him, and a necessary acknowledgement of him. To deny this, is to contradict one of the principal dictates of the law of nature. For God has given us nothing ultimately for ourselves, seeing we and all that we have, are wholly his. And to have any thing, whereof no part as such is to be spent in his service, is to have it with his displeasure. Let any one endeavour to assert and prove this position; no part of our time is to be set apart to the worship of God, and his service, in an holy and peculiar manner, and he will quickly find himself setting up in a full contradiction to the law of nature, and the whole light of the knowledge of God in his mind and conscience. Those who have attempted any such thing, have done it under this deceitful pretence, that all our time is to be spent to God, and every day is to be a Sabbath. For whereas notwithstanding this pretence, they spend most of their time directly and immediately to themselves, and their own occasions, it is evident that they do but make use of it, to rob God of that which is his due, directly and immediately. For to the holy separation of any thing to God, it is required as well that it be taken from ourselves, as that it be given to him. This therefore the law of our creation requires as to the separation of some part of our time to God. And if this does not at first consideration discover itself in its directive power, it will quickly do so in its condemning power upon a contradiction of it. Thus far then we have attained.

§. 25 Moreover, men are to worship God in assemblies and societies, such as he appoints, or such as by his Providence they are cast into. This will not be denied, seeing it stands upon as good, yes, better evidence, than the associations of mankind for ends political to their own good by government and order, which all men confess to be a direction of the law of nature. For what concerns our living to God naturally, is as clear in that light and conduct, as what concerns our living among ourselves. Now a part of this worship it is, that we honor him with what, by his gift, is made ours. Such is our time in this world. Nor can the worship itself be performed and celebrated in a due manner, without the designation, and separation of some time to that purpose; and thereby, secondly, this separation of time becomes a branch of the law of nature, by an immediate, natural and unavoidable consequence. And what is so, is no less to be reckoned among the rules of it, than the very first notions or impressions that it gives us concerning the nature of any thing, good or evil. For whatever reason can educe from the principles of reason, is no less reason, than those principles themselves, from where it is educed. And we aim no more from this discourse, but that the separation of some time to the worship of God, according to the ends before insisted on, is reasonable, so that the contrary in its first conception is unreasonable and foolish. And this I suppose is evident to all, I am sure by most it is granted. Could men hereupon acquiesce in the authority and wisdom of God, indigitating and measuring out that portion of time in all seasons, and ages of the Church; there might be a natural rest from these contentions, about a rest sacred and holy. However, I cannot but admire at the liberty which some men take positively to affirm and contend, that the command for the observation of the Sabbath, when or however it were given, was wholly umbratile and ceremonial. For there is that in it confessedly as its foundation, and that which all its concernments are educed from, which is as direct an impression on the mind of man from the law of creation, as any other instance that can be given thereof.

§. 26 Upon this foundation therefore we may proceed. And I say in the next place, that the stated time directed to for the ends of a sacred rest to God, by the light and law of nature, that is God's command impressed on the mind of man in and by his own creation, and that of the rest of the works of God intended for his direction in obedience, is, that it be one day in seven. For the confirmation hereof, what we have discoursed concerning the law of creation, and the covenant ratified with man therein, is to be remembered. On the supposition thereof, the advancement or constitution of any other portion of time in the stead, and to the exclusion thereof, as a determination and limitation of the time required in general in the first instance of that law, is and would appear a contradiction to it. God having finished his works in six days, and rested on the seventh, giving man thereby and therein, the rule, and law of his obedience and rewards for him to assign any other measure or portion of time for his rest to God in his solemn worship, is to decline the authority of God, for the sake of his own inventions; and to assign no portion at all to that end, is openly to transgress a principal dictate of the law of nature, as has been proved. Neither this direction nor transgression I confess, will evidently manifest themselves in the mere light of nature, as now depraved and corrupted. No more will sundry instances of its authority, unless its voice be diligently attended to, and its light cultivated and improved in the minds of men, by the advantage of consequential revelations, given to us for that purpose. For that by the assistance of Scripture light, and rational considerations from there arising, we may discover many things to be dictates of, and to be directed to by the law of nature, which those who are left to the mere guidance and conduct of it could not discover so to be, may be easily proved from the open transgression of it in sundry instances which they lived and approved themselves in, who seemed most to have lived according to it, and professed themselves to be wise in following the light and conduct of reason in all things, as was before at large discoursed. The polytheism that prevailed among the best of the heathens, their open profession of living to themselves, and seeking after their happiness in themselves, with many other instances make this evident. And if revelation or Scripture light contributed no more to the discovery of the postulata of the law of nature, but by a removal of those prejudices, which the manner and fashion of the world among men, and a corrupt conversation received by tradition from one generation to another had fixed on, and possessed their minds withal, yet were the advantages we have by it to this end, unspeakable. Let then this help be supposed, and let a judgement be made of the injunctions of the law of nature, rather by its condemning right and power, than by its directive light, (for that in our lapsed estate is a better [illegible] of its commands, than the other) and we shall find it manifesting itself in this matter. For on this supposition, let those who will not acknowledge, that the observation of one day in seven, is to be separated to God for the ends declared, allowing the assertion before laid down of the necessity of the separation of some stated time to that purpose, fix to themselves any other time in a certain revolution of days, and they will undoubtedly find themselves pressed with so many considerations from the law of their creation to the contrary, as will give them little rest or satisfaction in their minds, in what they do.

§. 27 Farther to manifest this, we may enquire what is necessary to any duty of obedience towards God, to evince it to be a requisite of the law of our creation. And here our diligence is required. For it must be said again expresly, what was before intimated, that it is a childish mistake to imagine, that whatever is required by the law of nature, is easily discernible, and always known to all. Some of its directions it may be are so, especially such as are inculcated on the minds of men, by their common interest and advantage. Such are neminem laedere, and jus suum cuique tribuere. But it is far from being true, that all the dictates of the law of nature, and requisites of right reason, are evident and incapable of controversy, as they would have been to man had he continued in his integrity. Many things there are between men themselves concerning which, after all helps and advantages, and a continued observation of the course of the world to this day, it is still disputed, what is the sense of the law of nature about them, and wherein, or how far they belong to it. The law of nations among themselves with respect to one another, on which is founded the peace and order of mankind, is nothing but the law of nature, as it has been expressed in instances by the customs and usages of them, who are supposed to have most diligently attended to its directions. And how many differences never to be determined by common consent there are in and about these things, is known. For there are degrees of evidence in the things that are of natural light. And many things that are so, are yet in practice accompanied with the consideration of positive laws, as also of civil usages and customs among men. And it is not easy to distinguish in many observances; what is of the law of nature, and what of law positive, or of useful custom. But of these things we have discoursed before in general. We are now to enquire what is requisite to warrant the ascription of any thing to this law.

§. 28 And (1.) it is required that it be congruous to the law of nature, and all the other known principles of it. To us it may be enjoined by law positive, or otherwise made necessary for us to observe. But it must in itself or materially, hold a good correspondency with all the known instances of the law of our creation, and this manifested with satisfying evidence, before its assignation thereunto. It is of natural right that we should obey God in all his commands; but this does not cause every command of God to belong to the law of nature. It is, as was said, moreover required thereunto, that it be in itself, and the subject matter of it, congruous to the principles of that law; whereof there is nothing in things merely arbitrary and positive, setting aside that general notion, that God is to be obeyed in all his laws; which belongs not to this question. Now when this congruity to the law of nature or right reason in the matter of any law or command is discovered and made evident, it will greatly direct the mind in its enquiry after its whole nature, and manifest what is superadded to it by positive command. And this will not be denied to the Sabbath, its command and observation. Let the ends of it before laid down be considered, and let them be compared with any other guidances or directions which we have by natural light concerning our living to God, and there will not only a harmony appear among them, but also that they contribute help and assistance to one another towards the same ultimate end.

§. 29 (2.) It is required that it have a general principle in the light of nature, and dictates of right reason, from where it may be educed, or which it will necessarily follow upon, supposing that principle rightly and duly improved. It is not enough that it be at agreement, that it no way interfere with other principles, it must also have one of its own, from where it does naturally arise. So does the second commandment of the Decalogue, belong to the law of nature. Its principle lies in that acknowledgement of the being of God, which is required in the first. For therein is God manifested to be of that nature, to be such a being, that it is, and must be an absurd, unreasonable, foolish, and impious thing in itself, implying a renunciation of the former acknowledgements, to make any images, or limited representations of his being, or to adore him any way otherwise than himself has declared. So is it here also. The separation of a stated time to the solemn worship of God, is so fixed on the mind of man by its own inbred light, as that it cannot be omitted, without open sin against it, in those who have not utterly sinned away all the efficacy of that light itself. However, that this is required of us by the law of our creation, may be proved against all contradiction. Hence whatever guiding, directing, determining positive law may ensue or be superadded about the limitation of this time so to be separated, it being only the application of this natural and moral principle, as to some circumstances of it, it hinders not, but that the law itself concerning it, is of the law of nature, and moral. For the original power to obligation of such a superadded law, lies in the natural principle before mentioned.

§. 30 (3.) What all men are taught by the works of creation themselves, their order, harmony, and mutual respect to each other, with reference to their duty towards God, and among themselves, is of the law of nature, although there be not an absolute distinct notion of it inbred in the mind discoverable. It is enough that the mind of man is so disposed, as to be ready and fit to receive the discovery and revelation of it. For the very creation itself, is a law to us, and speaks out that duty that God requires of us towards himself. For he has not only so ordered all the works of it, that they should be meet to instruct us, or contain an instructive power towards rational creatures made in that state and condition, wherein man was created, which was before described, which has in it the first notion of a law; but it was the will of God that we should learn our duty thereby, which gives it its complement, as a law obliging to obedience. And it is not only thus in general with respect to the whole work of creation in itself; but the ordering and disposal of the parts of it, is alike directive and instructive to the nature of man, and has the force of a law morally and everlastingly obligatory. Thus the preeminence of the man above the woman which is moral, ensues upon the order of the creation, in that the man was first made, and the woman for the man, as the Apostle argues (1 Timothy 2:12, 13). And all nations ought to be obliged hereby, though many of them through their apostasy from natural light, knew not that either man or woman was created, but it may be, supposed them to have grown out of the earth like mushrooms; and yet an effect of the secret original impression hereof, influenced their minds and practices. So the creation of one man and one woman gave the natural law of marriage; from where polygamy and fornication became transgressions of the law of nature. It will be hard to prove, that about these and the like things, there is a clear and undoubted principle of directive light in the mind of man, separate from the consideration of the order of creation. But therein a law, and that moral, is given to us, not to be referred to any other head of laws, but that of nature. And here as was before pleaded, the creation of the world in six days, with the rest of God on the seventh, and that declared, gives to all men an everlasting law of separating one day in seven to a sacred rest. For he that was made in the image of God, was made to imitate him, and conform himself to him; God in this order of things, saying as it were to him, what I have done, in your station do you likewise. Especially was this made effectual, by his innate apprehension that his happiness consisted in entering into the rest of God, the pledge whereof, it was his unquestionable duty to embrace.

§. 31 (4.) In this state of things, a direction by a revelation in the way of a precept for the due and just exercise, of the principles, rules, and documents before mentioned, is so far from impeaching the morality of any command or duty, as that it completes the law of it, with the addition of a formal obligatory power and efficacy. The light and law of creation, so far as it was innate, or concreated with the faculties of our souls, and completing our state of dependence on God, has only the general nature of a principle, inclining to actions suitable to it, and directing us therein. The documents also that were originally given to that light from without, by the other works and order of the creation, had only in their own nature the force of an instruction. The will of God, and an act of sovereignty therein, formally constituted them a law. But now man being made to live to God, and under his conduct and guidance in all things that he might come to the enjoyment of him, no prejudice arises to, nor alteration is made in the dictates of the law of creation, by the superadding any positive commands for the performance of the duties that it does require, and regulating of them, as to the especial manner and ends of their performance. And where such a positive law is interposed or superadded, it is the highest folly to imagine, that the whole obligation to the duty, depends on that command, as though the authority of the law of nature were superseded thereby; or that the whole command about it, were now grown positive and arbitrary. For although the same law cannot be moral and positive in the same respect; yet the same duty may be required by a law moral, and a law positive. It is thus with many observances of the Gospel. We may for example instance in excommunication, according to the common received notion of it. There is a positive command in the Gospel for the exercise of the sentence of it, in the churches of Christ. But this hinders not, but that it is natural for all societies of men, to exclude from their societies those that refractorily refuse to observe the laws and orders of the society, that it may be preserved to its proper end. And according to the rule of this natural equity, that it should be so, have all rational societies among men, that knew nothing of the Gospel, proceeded for their own good and preservation. Neither does the superadded institution in the Gospel derogate from the general reason hereof, or change the nature of the duty, but only direct its practice, and make application of it, to the uses and ends of the Gospel itself.

§. 32 I do not plead, that every law that God prescribes to me is moral, because my obedience to it is a moral duty. For the morality of this obedience, does not arise from, nor depend upon the especial command of it, which it may be is positive and arbitrary, but from the respect that it has to our dependance in all things which we have to do absolutely and universally on God. To obey God in all things, is unquestionably our moral duty. But when the substance of the command it self, that is, the duty required is moral, the addition of a positive command does no way impeach its morality, nor suspend the influence of that law, whereon its morality does depend. It is therefore unduly pretended by some, that because there is a positive command for the observation of the Sabbath, supposing there should be such a command for the whole of it, which is nothing else but an explanation and enforcement of the original moral precept of it, (as in every state of the Church something relating to it, namely, the precise determination of the day it self in the hebdomadal revolution, depended on a law positive) that therefore the law of it, is not moral. It is not so indeed, so far and in that respect wherein it is positive; but it is so from it self, for the substance of it, and antecedently to that positive command. The whole law therefore of the Sabbath and its observation may be said to be moral positive, which expression has been used by some learned divines in this case, and that not unduly. For a law may be said to be so on a double account. First, when the positive part of the law is declarative, and accumulative with respect to a precedent law of nature, as when some additions are made to the duties therein required as to the manner of their performance. Secondly, when the foundation of a duty only is laid in the law of nature, but its entire practice is regulated by a positive law. From all the instances insisted on, it is manifest that the law of the sabbatical observation is moral, a branch of the law of nature, however it be enforced, directed, and the especial day in seven be limited and determined by positive commands.

§. 33 These things by many are denied. They will not grant, that there is any rule or direction in the law of creation for a sacred rest to God, on one day in seven. For they say, that no such can be made to appear with that evidence, which the common anticipations of the minds of men, are accompanied withal. But this objection has been sufficiently obviated, by a due stating of the law of nature, which is not to be confined to inbred natural anticipations only. And it is certain also, that some say the very same concerning the being of God himself, of the difference between good and evil; namely, that there are no manifest and stedfast presumptions of them in the mind of man, which yet hinders not, but that the acknowledgement of a divine being, as also the difference that is between good and evil, is natural, and inseparable from the faculties of our souls. Hence Julian in Cyril. lib. 5. con. Jul. joins the first and fourth precept together: says he, [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉]. He says, (and swears) that all nations judged that the commandments (of the Decalogue) ought to be kept, excepting the first forbidding other gods, and the other of remembering the Sabbath to keep it, the one may be rejected as well as the other.

Besides the Law of Nature as to an obligatory indication of our duty, is not, no not in the extent insisted on, as comprizing the objective documents that are in the works and order of the creation, to be considered alone by it self in this matter, but in conjunction with the Covenant that it was the rule of. For whatever was required of man by vertue of that Covenant, was part of the moral law of God, or belonged to the law of his creation. From all which the rest pleaded for to be moral does arise. And considering the nature of this duty, with the divine positive direction whereby its first practice was regulated, and stood in need so to be, when God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it; and it is marvellous, that the remaining light of nature about it, should put forth it self by so many intimations, as it does; and in so many instances to express the first impressions that it had from God in this matter. For I think we have manifested that they are many, and those pleadable against any probability of contradiction. In a word, we may in all ages find the generality of mankind, feeling, and as it were groping in the dark, after a stated sacred rest to be observed to God. And however, the most of men destitute of Divine Revelation, missed the season, the ends, and the object of this rest, yet they were plainly influenced to all their stated sacred or religious solemnities, both feasts and abstinences, by the remainders of an innate perswasion, that such a rest was to be observed. Besides we know, that the present indications of nature as corrupt, are no just rule and measure of its original abilities, with respect to living to God. And they do but wofully bewray their ignorance and impudence who begin to plead, that our minds or understandings, were no way impaired or worsted by the fall; but that the principles or abilities in them in reference to God and our selves, are the same as originally, and that unimpaired. Either such men design to overthrow the Gospel and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, or they know not what they say, nor whereof they do affirm. But hereof we shall treat elsewhere by God's assistance. At present we know, that the light of nature is so defective, or so impotent in giving indications of it self, that many nations left destitute of Divine Revelation, or wilfully rejecting it, have lived and approved themselves in open transgressions of the law of it, as has been shewed. The Apostle gives sundry instances of that kind, among them who most boasted themselves to attend to the dictates of right reason (Romans 1). All idolaters, polygamists, fornicators, and those who constantly lived on spoil and rapine, approving themselves, or not condemning themselves in what they did, are testimonies hereof. That alone then is not to be pretended to be of the law of nature, which all men acknowledge to be a part of it, nor is every thing to be rejected from having a place therein, which some have lived in a secure transgression of, and others say, that it gives no indications of it self; but that is to be understood to belong thereunto, which by the diligent consideration of all means and advantages of knowledge, may be found to be congruous to all the other known and allowed principles and maximes of it, and to have its foundation in it, being what originally God by any means instructed our nature in, as that which belonged to our living to him. And it may be a man may sooner learn, what is natural duty to God, in and from corrupted nature, by the opposition that it will make to its practice, as it is corrupted, than by the light and guidance it will give to it, as nature. It is also, as we have observed, more discernible in its judging and condemning what is done contrary to it, than in directing to what it did originally require.

§. 34 Having given evidence to the morality of the Sabbath from the indications of it, and directions to it in the light and law of nature, which will be found to be such, as not to be by any modest or sober man contemned; we proceed to add those other consequential confirmations of the same truth, which God has given us in the following revelations of his will about it. And first, this gives no small countenance to an apprehension of an unchangeable morality in the law of the Sabbath, that in all estates of the Church, from the foundation of the world, under the several covenants wherein it has walked with God, and the various dispensations of them, there is a full evidence, that in them all God has still required of his people, the observation of a sacred rest to himself, in an hebdomadal revolution of time or dayes. A full confirmation hereof, with its proofs and illustrations, the reader will find at large in our exposition of the fourth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, so soon as God shall give an opportunity to have it communicated to him. At present, I shall touch only on the heads of things.

§. 35 That any religious observance has been required through all estates of the Church, having no foundation but only in arbitrary institution, cannot be proved by any one single instance. The institutions of the state of innocency, in the matters of the garden, with the trees of life, and of the knowledge of good and evil ceased, as all men confess, with that estate. And although God did not immediately upon the sin of man destroy that garden, no nor it may be untill the flood, leaving it as a testimony against the wickedness of that apostate generation, for whose sin the world was destroyed; yet was neither it, nor the trees of it, of any use, or lawful to be used as to any significancy in the worship of God. And the reason is, because all institutions, are appendixes, and things annexed to a covenant; and when that covenant ceaseth, or is broken, they are of no use or signification at all.

§. 36 There was a new state of the Church erected presently after the Fall, and this also attended with sundry new institutions, especially with that concerning sacrifices. In this Church state some alterations were made, and sundry additional institutions given to it, upon the erection of the peculiar Church state of the Israelites in the Wilderness; which yet hindered not, but that it was in general the same Church state, and the same dispensation of the Covenant, that the people of God, before and after the giving of the Law, enjoyed and lived under. Hence it was, that sundry institutions of worship were equally in force both before and after the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai; as is evident in sacrifices, and some other instances may be given. But now when the state of the Church, and the dispensation of the Covenant, came to be wholly altered, as they were by the Gospel, not any one of the old institutions was continued, or to be continued, but they were all abolished and taken away. Nothing at all was traduced over from the old Church states, neither from that in innocency, nor from that which ensued on the Fall in all its variations, with any obligatory power, but what was founded in the Law of Nature, and had its force from there. We may then confidently assert, that what God requires equally in all estates of the Church, that is moral, and of an everlasting obligation to us, and all men. And this is the state of matters with the Sabbath, and the Law thereof.

§. 37 Of the command of the Sabbath in the state of innocency, we have before treated, and vindicated the testimony given to it (Genesis 2:2, 3). It will, God assisting, be farther discoursed and confirmed in our exposition of the fourth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. The observation of it by virtue of its original Law and command, before the promulgation of the Decalogue in Sinai, or the first Wilderness observation of the Sabbath, recorded on the occasion of giving Manna, has also been before confirmed. Many exceptions I acknowledge are laid in, against the testimonies insisted on for the proof of these things; but those such, as I suppose, are not able to invalidate them in the minds of men void of prejudice. And the pretence of the obscurity that is in the command, will be easily removed, by the consideration of another instance of the same antiquity. All men acknowledge, that a promise of Christ, for the object and guide of the faith of the ancient Patriarchs, was given in those words of God, immediately spoken to the Serpent (Genesis 3:15): I will put enmity between you and the Woman, and between your seed and her seed, it shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise its heel. The words in themselves seem obscure to any such end or purpose. But yet there is such light given into them, and the mind of God in them, from the circumstances of time, place, persons, occasions, from the nature of the things treated of, from the whole ensuing economy, or dealing of God with men revealed in the Scripture, as that no sober man doubts of the promissory nature of those words, nor of the intention of them in general, nor of the proper subject of the promise, nor of the grace intended in it. This promise therefore was the immediate object of the faith of the Patriarchs of old, the great motive and encouragement to, and of their obedience. But yet it will be hard, from the records of Scripture, to prove, that any particular Patriarch did believe in, trust, or plead that promise, which yet we know that they did all and every one; nor was there any need for our instruction, that any such practice of theirs should be recorded; seeing it is a general rule, that those holy men of God did observe and do whatever he did command them. Therefore from the record of a command, we may conclude to a suitable practice, though it be not recorded; and from a recorded approved practice on the other side, we may conclude to the command or institution of the thing practised, though nowhere plainly recorded. Let unprejudiced men consider those words (Genesis 2:2, 3), and they will find the command and institution of the Sabbath, as clear and conspicuous in them, as the promise of grace in Christ is in them before considered; especially as they are attended with the interpretation given of them, in God's following dealings with his Church. And therefore although particular instances of the obedience of the old Patriarchs in this part of it, or the observation of the Sabbath, could not be given and evinced, yet we ought no more on that account to deny, that they did observe it, than we ought to deny their faith in the promised Seed, because it is nowhere expressly recorded in the story of their lives.

§. 38 Under the Law, that is, after the giving of it in the Wilderness, it is granted, that the portion of time insisted on, was precisely required to be dedicate to God; although it may be for some ages, it will be hard to meet with a recorded instance of its observation. But yet none dares take any countenance from there, to question whether it were so observed or no.

All therefore is secure to the great alteration that was made in Instituted Worship under the Gospel. And to proceed to that season, there is no practice in any part of God's Public Worship, that appears earlier in the Records of the New Testament, as to what was peculiar thereunto, than the observation of one day in seven for the celebration of it. Hereof more must be spoken afterwards. Some say indeed, that the appointment of one day in seven, and that the first day of the week, for the worship of God, was only a voluntary agreement, or a matter consented to by the Apostolical or first Churches, merely gratia, or to keep good order and decorum among them, without respect to any moral command of God to that purpose. This they say directly with respect to the first day of the week, or the Lord's Day, and its religious observation. But those who appoint the first day of every week to be so observed, do without doubt appoint that that should be the condition of one day in seven. Now I could incline to this apprehension, if besides sundry other invincible reasons that lye against it, I did not find that God had always before in all states of the Church from the foundation of the world, invariably required the observation of one day in seven; and I know no reason why what had been observed all along so far upon his own authority, he would have observed still, but no longer on his command, but on the invention and consent of men. Had the religious observance of one day in seven been utterly laid aside and abolished, it would and ought to have been concluded, that the law of it was expired in the Cross of Christ, as were those of Circumcision, the Sacrifices, and the whole Temple-Worship. But to have this observance continued by the whole Church, in and under the approbation of God, whereof none ever doubted, by a reassumption of it through the authority of the Church, after God had taken off his own from it, is a most vain imagination.

§. 39 I dispute not of what the Church may appoint for good order's sake to be observed in Religious Assemblies. But this I dare say confidently, that no Church, nor Churches, not all the Churches in the world, have power by common consent to ordain any thing in the worship of God, as a part of it, which God had once ordained, commanded and required, but now under the Gospel ceases so to do, as Circumcision and Sacrifices. But this is the state of the religious observance of one day in seven. None can deny, but that formerly it was ordained and appointed of God. And it should seem according to this opinion, that he took off the authority of his own command, that the same observance might be continued upon the authority of the Church. Credat Apella. Neither do the footsteps of the occasion of any such Ecclesiastical institution appear any where on record in the Scripture, where all things of an absolute new and arbitrary institution, whether occasional or durable, are taken notice of. There is indeed mention made, and that frequently, of the first day of the week to be set apart for the assembling of believers for the worship of God, and a solid reason is insinuated, why that especial day in particular ought so to be. But why one day in seven should be constantly observed to the purpose mentioned, no reason, no account is given in the New Testament, other than why men should not lie or steal. Nor has any man a ground to imagine, that there was an intercision of a Sabbatical observance, by the interposition of any time, between the observation of the seventh day, and of the first of the week, for the same ends and purposes; though not absolutely in the same manner. If there be any indications, proofs, evidences, that the first Churches continued without the observation of one day in seven, after they desisted from having a religious respect to the seventh day, before they had the same regard to the first of the week to this purpose, I wish they might be produced; for they would be of good weight in this matter; but as yet no such thing is made to appear. For if the obligation of the precept for observing one day in seven, as a sacred rest to God, may be suspended in any change of the outward state and condition of the Church, it cannot be esteemed to be moral. I speak not of the actual observance of the thing commanded, which for many causes may occasionally and temporarily be superseded, but of the obliging force and power in the command itself, which if it be moral, is perpetual, and not capable of interruption. Now testimonies we have that sundry persons not sufficiently instructed in the liberty of the Gospel, and the law of its obedience, observed both the days, the seventh, and the first; yes, it may be that for a while some observed the one day, and some the other; but that any Christians of old thought themselves de facto set at liberty from the religious observation of one day in seven, this neither is, nor can be proved. This practice then was universal, and that approved of God, as we shall see afterwards, and farther in another Discourse, now more than once directed to. Now what can any man conceive to be the ground of this unvariableness in the commanded and approved observation of one day in seven in all states, conditions, and alterations in and of the Church, but that the command for it, is part of the moral unchangeable Law? Hereby therefore it is confirmed to us so to be. And indeed, if every state of the Church be founded in an especial work of God, and his rest thereon, and complacency therein, as a pledge or testimony of giving his Church rest in himself, as elsewhere shall be fully confirmed; a Sabbatical rest must be necessary to the Church in every state and condition. And although absolutely another day might have been fixed on under the New Testament, and not one in an Hebdomadal Revolution, because its peculiar works were not precisely finished in six days; yet that season being before fixed and determined by the law of Creation, no innovation nor alteration would be allowed therein.

§. 40 There is yet remaining that which is principally to be pleaded in this cause, and which of it self is sufficient to bear the weight of the whole. Now this is the place which the command for the observation of a Sabbath to God, holds in the Decalogue. Concerning this we have no more to enquire, but whether it have obtained a station therein, in its own right, or were on some other occasion advanced to that privilege. For if it be free of that society in its own right, or on the account of its origine and birth, the morality of it can never be impeached; if it had only an occasional interest therein, and held it by a lease of time, it may ere this be long since disseized of it. Now we do not yet dispute, whether the seventh day precisely be ordained in the fourth Commandment; and do take up the whole nature of it, as the only subject of it, and alone required in it. Only I take it for granted, that the observation of one day in seven is required in the command, which is so, because the seventh day, or a seventh day in a septenary revolution, is expresly commanded.

§. 41 It is indeed by many pretended, that the command firstly and directly respecteth the seventh day precisely, and one day in seven, no otherwise than as it necessarily follows thereon. For where the seventh day is required, one in seven is so consequentially. And they who thus pretend have a double design, the one absolutely contradictory to the other. For those do so, who from there conclude, that, the seventh day precisely comprizing the whole nature of the Sabbath, that day is indispensibly and everlastingly to be observed: and those do so, who with equal confidence draw their conclusion to the utter abolition of the whole Sabbath, and the law of it, in the taking away of the seventh day it self. Such different apprehensions have men of the use and improvement that may be made of the same principles and concessions. For those of the later sort hope, that if they can prove the observation of the seventh day precisely, and not one of seven but only consequentially, to be the whole of what is intended in the fourth Commandment, that by vertue of the Apostle's rule (Colossians 2:16), to which purpose he often elsewhere expresseth himself, they shall be able to prove, that it is utterly abolished. Those of the other sort suppose, that if they can make this to be the sense of the Commandment, they shall prevail to fix a perpetual obligation on all men from there to the observation of the seventh day precisely, although the words of the Apostle seem to lye expresly against it.

§. 42 But the supposition it self that both parties proceed upon, is not only uncertain, but certainly false. For the very order of nature it self disposeth these things to that series, and mutual respect which can never be interrupted. The command is about the separation of time to the service of God. This he tacitely grants, nor will deny, if he be pressed, who contends for the seventh day. Here therefore it is natural and necessary, that time be indefinitely considered and required, antecedently to the designation and limitation of the portion of time that is required. This the order of nature requireth. For if it be time indefinitely that is limited in the command to the seventh day, time indefinitely is the first object of that limitation. And the case is the same with reference to one day in seven. This also has and must have a natural priority to the seventh day; for the seventh day, is one day of the seven. And these things are separable. Some part of time may be separated to religious worship, and yet not one day in seven; but any other portion in a certain revolution of days, weeks, months, or years; if there be not a distinct reason for it. And one day in seven may be so separated, wherein the seventh day precisely may have no interest. And these things the very nature of them does assert, distinguish, and determine. Whatever morality therefore, or obligation to a perpetual observance can be fancied by any to be in the command as to the seventh day, it is but consequential to, dependant upon, and separable from, the command and duty for the observance of one day in seven. And this sufficeth as to our present purpose. For I do not yet treat with them who contend for the precise observation of the seventh day now under the Gospel. It is enough, that here we prove, that the fourth Commandment requireth the sacred observation of one day in seven, and that so far as it does so, it is moral and unchangeable.

§. 43 All men, as we have often observed, do allow that there is something moral in the fourth Commandment, namely, that either some part of it, or the general nature of it is so. I do not therefore well understand them, and him of late who has pleaded that the seventh day only is required in that Command, and yet that this seventh day was absolutely ceremonial and typical, being accordingly abolished. The consistency of these assertions does not yet appear to me. For if the whole matter of the Command be ceremonial, the Command itself must needs be so also. For a relief against this contradiction, it is said, that the morality of this Command consists in this, that we should look after and take up our spiritual rest in God. But this will not allow, that it should be a distinct Commandment of itself, distinguished from all the rest of the Decalogue, nor indeed scarcely from any one of them. For the primitive end of all the Commandments was to direct us and bring us to 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 does the nature of religious worship which undoubtedly is directed therein. The rest of God proposed in the Command as the reason of it, which was on the seventh day after six of working, requires the same intention in the words. So does 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 limitation of some time to the solemn observation of it. Few therefore have ever denied but that the morality of this Command, if it be moral, does extend itself to the separation of some part of our time to the solemn recognizing of God, and 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 no, and so continue to be possessed of a power perpetually obligatory to all the sons of men. And this is that which we are now inquiring into.

§. 44 Here therefore we must have respect to what has 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 all other things we are taught and obliged to the observation of, the law whereby it is required must be moral. For the descriptive, or distinctive term (moral) does first belong to the things themselves required by any law, and from there to the law whereby they are commanded. If then we have proved, that the thing itself required in the fourth Commandment, or the religious observation of a sacred rest to God for the ends mentioned, in the periodical revolution of seven days is natural and moral, from the relation that it has to the law of creation, then there can be no question of the morality of that Command. What has 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 which we ground our persuasion upon 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 apprehensions, and inclinations, on the minds and practices of other men; which I judge far more intolerable in particular persons, than in churches and societies, in both contrary to that royal law of love and liberty, which all believers ought to walk by. And therefore as we said, what has 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, speak because I believe, and declare nothing, but whereof I am 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 look 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 to 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, which belonged peculiarly to the then present and future state of that Church in the Land of Canaan; but these especial 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 pleas for morality in the fourth command upon the account of its interest in the Decalogue, and the manifest evidences of that interest. As therefore the giving, writing, use, and disposal of the Decalogue were peculiar and distinct from the whole 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, has 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 (Exodus 19), 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 Exodus 19:10, 11, 17, 18; Deuteronomy 4:34; chapter 33. In the first whereof the work itself is declared; in the latter a distinguishing greatness and glory, above all other legislations, is ascribed to it. And it is worth the enquiry what might be the cause of this difference. No other appears to me, but that God thereby declared, that the law of the 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 here it may be remembered, and so in all the ensuing instances, that we have proved, the matter of this command to be first, the separation of some time indefinitely to the worship of God, and then the limitation of that time 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 revocation, and objective representation of that law, which being implanted on the heart of man, and communicated to him in his creation, was variously defaced; partly by the corruption and loss of that light through the entrance of sin, which should have guided us in the right apprehension and understanding of its dictates, and the obedience that it required; partly through a long course of a corrupt conversation which the world had in the pursuit of the first 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 is 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 representation of that law, which by his Spirit he would write in the fleshly tables of the hearts of his elect.

And this is well observed by the Church of England, which after the reading of the whole Decalogue, the fourth command among the rest, directs the people to pray, that God would write all these laws in their hearts. Now this concerns only the moral law. For although obedience to all God's ceremonial and typical institutions while 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, especial grace would be yet administered for the observation of those laws now they are abolished, which would not only be vain and useless; but contradictory to the whole design of the grace bestowed upon us, which is to be improved in a due and genuine exercise of it. Neither does 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.

As all the rest of the Moral Precepts, it was reserved in the Ark; whereas the Law of Ceremonial Ordinances was placed in a Book written by Moses on the side of the Ark, separable from it, or from where it might be removed. The Ark on many accounts was called the Ark of the Covenant; whereof, God assisting, I shall treat elsewhere. One of them was, that it contained in it nothing, but that Moral Law which was the Rule of the Covenant. And this was placed therein, to manifest that it was to have its accomplishment in him, who was the End of the Law (Romans 10:3, 4). For the Ark with the Propitiatory was a Type of Jesus Christ (Romans 3:25). And the Reason of the different disposal of the Moral Law in the Ark, and of the Ceremonial in a Book on the side of it, was to manifest, as the inseparableness of the Law from the Covenant, so the establishing, accomplishment, and answering of the one Law in Christ, with the Removal and abolishing of the other by him. For the Law kept in the Ark, the Type of him, he was to fulfil it in Obedience, 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 capable of Abolition in this world, it had not been safeguarded 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, in a readiness to be removed, when the appointed time should come.

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 (Deuteronomy 10:4). ⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩; Those ten Words which the Lord spake to you in the Mount out of the midst of the fire, in the Day of the Assembly. No considering Person can read these words, but he will find a most signal Emphasis in the several parts of them. The Day of the Assembly; ⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩; is that which the Jews so celebrate, under the Name of the Station in Sinai; the Day that was the foundation of their Church State, when they solemnly covenanted with God about the Observation of the Law (Deuteronomy 5:24, 25, 26, 27). And the Lord himself spake these words, that is, in an immediate and especial manner, which is still observed where any mention is made of them, as Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5 & 10. And says Moses, he spake them to you; that is immediately to all the Assembly (Deuteronomy 5:22), where it is added, that he spake them out of the midst of the Fire, of the Cloud, and of the thick Darkness, with a great Voice, (that every individual Person might hear it) and he added no more. He spake not one Word more, gave not one Precept more immediately to the whole people, but the whole solemnity of Fire, Thunder, Lightning, Earthquake, and sound of Trumpet immediately ceased and disappeared; whereon God entered his Treaty with Moses, wherein he revealed to him, and instructed him in the Ceremonial and Judicial Law, for the use of the people who had now taken upon themselves, the Religious Observance of what he should so reveal and appoint. Now as the whole Decalogue was hereby signalized, and sufficiently distinguished from the other Laws and Institutions which were of another Nature; so in particular, this Precept concerning the Sabbath, is distinguished from all those which were of the Mosaical Paedagogie, in whose Declaration Moses was the Mediator between God and the people. And this was only upon the Account of its Participation, in the same Nature with the rest of the Commands, however it may and do contain something in it, that was peculiar to that people, as shall be shewed afterwards.

Whereas there is a frequent Opposition made in the Old Testament, between Moral Obedience, and the outward observance of Ordinances of a mere arbitrary Institution, there is no mention made of the Weekly Sabbath in that case, though all Ceremonial Institutions are in one place or other enumerated. It is true (Isaiah 1:13), the Sabbath is joined with the New Moons, and its Observation rejected in comparison of Holiness and Righteousness. But as this is expounded in the next Verse, to be intended principally of the appointed annual Feasts or Sabbaths; so we do grant, that the Sabbath, as relating to Temple Worship there intended and described, had that accompanying it, which was peculiar to the Jews and Ceremonial, as we shall shew hereafter. But absolutely the Observation of the Sabbath is not opposed to, nor rejected in comparison of other, or any Moral Duties.

The Observation of the Sabbath is pressed on the Church, on the same Grounds, and with the same Promises, as the greatest and most indispensible Moral Duties; and together with them opposed to those Fasts which belonged to Ceremonial Institutions. To this purpose is the Nature and Use of it at large discoursed (Isaiah 58:6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14).

§. 46 Now it is assuredly worth our enquiry, what are the just reasons of the preference of the Sabbath above all positive institutions, both by the place given to it in the Decalogue, as also on the account of the other especial instances insisted on. Suppose the command of it to be ceremonial, and one of these two reasons, or both of them must be alleged as the cause hereof. For this exaltation of it must arise, either from the excellency of it in itself and service, or 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 herein 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 upon the account of its morality, and the invariable obligation from there arising to its observation, that it is so joined with the precepts of the same nature; and such we have now, as I suppose, sufficiently confirmed it to be.

§. 47 I cannot but judge yet farther, that in the caution given by our Savior to his disciples, about praying that their flight should not be on the Sabbath day (Matthew 24:20), he does 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 before hand lay in provision for the edification of any of his disciples in error. (2.) Before that time came, they were sufficiently instructed doctrinally in the dissolution of all obligation in ceremonial institutions; this was done principally by Saint Paul in all his epistles; especially in that to 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 eminent danger in time of war, so that they might lawfully either fight or fly, as their safety did require. This is evident from the decree made by them under the Hasmonaeans. And such imminent danger is now supposed by our Savior; 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 befall 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, than, when they stand in most need of them. There is therefore another answer invented; namely, that our Lord Jesus in these words respected not the consciences of his disciples, but their trouble; and therefore joins 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 in any cause wherein the lives of men were concerned. (2.) The times intended were such, as wherein there was no course of law, justice or equity among 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 Savior speaks to his disciples upon a supposition of the perpetual obligation of the law of the Sabbath; that they should pray to be delivered from the necessity of a flight on the day whereon the duties of it were to be observed, lest it falling out otherwise, should prove a great aggravation of their distress.

§. 48 From these particular instances we may return to the consideration of the Law of the Decalogue in general, and the perpetual power of exacting obedience wherewith it is accompanied. That in the Old Testament it is frequently declared to be universally obligatory, and has 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 Savior treats (Matthew 5:17, 18, 19). This he affirms that he came not to dissolve, as he did the ceremonial law, but to fulfill it; and then affirms that not one jot or tittle of it shall pass away. And making thereon a distribution of the whole into its several commands, he declares his disapprobation of them who shall break, 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 reaches not to the confirmation of the seventh day precisely we shall afterwards abundantly demonstrate. In like manner Saint James treats concerning the whole law and all the commands of it (chapter 2:10, 11). And the argument he insists on for the observance of the whole; namely, the giving of it by the same authority, is confined to the Decalogue, and the way of God's giving the law thereof, or else it may be extended to all Mosaical 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, has 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 endeavored to be given to them, I shall give them a new examination, and remove them out of our way.

§. 50 It is then objected in the first place; Disquisit. de Moralitate Sabbati; p 7. That the command for the observation of the Sabbath, is a command of time, or concerning time only; namely, that some certain and determinate time be assigned to the worship of God; and this may be granted to be moral. But time is no part of moral worship, but only a circumstance of it, even as place is also. Therefore the command that requires them in particular cannot be moral. For these and the like circumstances must necessarily be of a positive determination.

§. 50 An. (1.) The whole force of this argument consists in this, that time is but 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 to 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; however it be a duty required by the law of nature that we duly observe it, when it is commanded; for by the law of nature God is to be obeyed in all his commands, of what sort soever they are. If that law be moral, so is the duty required by it, and so is our obedience to it. The only way then to prove, that the observation of time is no part of moral worship, is this; namely, to manifest that the law whereby it is required is positive, and not moral; for that it is required by divine command, of the one sort or the other, is now supposed. And on the other side, from the consideration of the thing itself naturally, as that it is an adjunct or circumstance of other things, no consequence arises 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 to God in his worship on such a day. And this, not a holy rest to God in general, as the tendency and end of all our obedience and living to him, but as an especial remembrance and representation of the rest of God himself, with his complacency and satisfaction in his works, as establishing a covenant between himself and us. This is the principal subject of the command; or a stated day of a holy rest to 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 especial or particular place, had the least guidance or direction to 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 has been showed at large. And therefore although any place, notwithstanding any thing in the law of nature, might have been separated by positive institution to the solemn worship of God, it does not from there follow, as is pretended, that any time, a day in a monthly or annual revolution, might have been separated to 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 to the Israelites in the station at Mara, or afterwards at Alesh; namely, the seventh day from the foundation of the world. This in the Command they are required to observe. Hence the words of it are that they should Remember [in non-Latin alphabet] that same Sabbath Day, or that day of the Sabbath which was newly revealed to them. This Command therefore cannot be moral as to the limitation of time specified therein, seeing it only confirms the observation of the seventh day Sabbath which was before given to 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 my answer in general, and then consider the especial improvements that are made of it.

1. Instances may be given, and have been given by all writers concerning the Hebrew tongue, wherein the prefixed letters sometimes answering the Greek praepositive articles, are redundant; and if at all emphatical, yet they do not at all limit, specify or determine. See Psalm 1:4; Ecclesiastes 2:14; Leviticus 18:5. The observation therefore of prefixing [in non-Latin alphabet] to [in non-Latin alphabet], 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 whoever aright considered the various use, and frequent redundancy of that praefixe.

2. The Sabbath or rest of a seventh day was known and observed from the foundation of the world, as has been proved. And therefore if from the praefixe, we are to conclude a limitation, or determination to be intended in the words, Remember the Sabbath Day, yet it respects only the original Sabbath, or the Sabbath in respect of its original, and not any new institution of it. For supposing the observation of the Sabbath to have been before in use, whether that use were only of late, or a few days before, or of more ancient times, even from the beginning of the world, the Command concerning it may be well expressed by [in non-Latin alphabet] remember the Sabbath Day.

3. Suppose that the Sabbath had received a limitation to the seventh day precisely, in the ordinance given to that people in the first raining of manna; then does the observation 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 to 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, requires no more but a weekly day of rest, whereunto the seventh day is reduced, as added by an especial ordinance. And the reason of this Commandment from the works of God, and the order of them, is repeated in the Decalogue, because the instruction given us by them, being a part of the law of our creation, more subject to a neglect, disregard, and forgetfulness, than those other parts of it, which were wholly innate to the principles of our own nature, it was necessary that the remembrance of it should be so 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, has respect to the singular necessity, use, and benefit of this holy observance, as also to that neglect and decay in its observation, which partly through their own sin, partly through the hardships that it met withal in the world, the Church of former ages had fallen into. And what it had lately received of a new institution with reference to the Israelites, falls also under this Command, or is reduced to 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 has 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 to 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 an especial determination and institution. And this especial institution is to continue, unless it be abrogated or changed by his own authority, which it may be, without the least impeachment of the moral reason of the whole Law, and a new day be limited by the same authority, which has been done accordingly, as we shall afterwards declare.

§. 52 It is yet farther pleaded (Disquisit. p. 9, 10, 11, 12.) that no distinction can be made between a weekly Sabbath, and the seventh day precisely. And if any such difference be asserted, then if one of them be appointed in the fourth Commandment, the other is not. For there are not two Sabbaths 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. The seventh day, and that only was the Sabbath of the Old Testament, and of the Decalogue. These things I say are at large pleaded by the forementioned author.

An. 1. These Objections are framed against a Distinction used by another Learned Person, about the Sabbath as absolutely commanded in the 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 to the Church of the Israelites, the other required in the Decalogue. But any man may, yes, 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 Dependance on God, in the fourth Command; and the same Sabbath, as it had a temporary, occasional Determination to the seventh Day in the Church of the Jews by virtue of an especial Intimation of the Will of God, suited to 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 does not contain only the moral equity that some time should always be set apart to 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 does 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 to the seventh Day precisely, as before instituted and commanded (Exodus 16). Nor is here the least appearance of two Sabbaths, but one only is absolutely commanded to all, and determined to 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 to an antecedent Mosaical Institution, with the Nature of that Administration of the Covenant which the people of Israel were then taken into, has been evinced in our investigation of the Causes and Ends of the Sabbath preceding; and been cleared by many. And it seems evident to an impartial consideration. For the Observation of one Day in seven belongs to every Covenant of God with man. And the Decalogue is the unvariable Rule of man's walking before God, and living to 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 to the Covenant of Works, cannot therefore be firstly, but only occasionally intended in the Decalogue. Nor does it, nor can it, invariably belong to our absolute Obedience to 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 observed) is because God blessed and sanctified the Sabbath Day, (in the close of the Command, where the formal Reason of our Obedience is expressed) not the seventh Day. Nor is indeed the joint Observation of the seventh Day precisely to all to whom this Command is given, that is, to all who take the Lord to be their God; possible; though it were to the Jews in the Land of Palestina, who were obliged to keep that Day. For the difference of the Climate in the world will not allow it. Nor did the Jews ever know whether the Day they observed, was the seventh from the Creation; only they knew it was so from the day whereon Manna was first given to them. And the whole Revolution, and Computation of Time by Days, was sufficiently interrupted in the days of Joshua and Hezekiah, from allowing us to think the Observation of the seventh Day to be Moral. And it is a Rule to judge of the intention of all Laws Divine and Humane, that the meaning of the preceptive part of them is to be collected from the Reasons annexed to them, or inserted in them. Now the Reasons for a Sacred Rest that are intimated and stated in this Command, do no more respect the seventh Day, than any other in seven. Six days are granted to labor, that is in number, and not more in a septenary Revolution. Nor does 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 an alike manner designed thereunto; which things are at large pleaded by others.

§. 54 It has hitherto been allowed generally, that the fourth Commandment does at least include something in it that is Moral; or else indeed no color can be given to 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 can 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 upon all men to the Observance of it, which is all for the substance that is contended for. To avoid this, it is now affirmed (Disquisit p. 14.) That, Moralc Quarti Praecepti est, non unum Diem sed totum tempus vitae nostrae quantum id fieri potest, impendendum esse cultui Dei, quaerendo regnum Dei & Justitiam ejus, atque inserviendo aedificationi proximi: quo pertinet ut Deo serviamus, ejus beneficia agnoscamus & celeberemus, cum invocemus Spiritu, fidem nostram testemur confessione oris, &c. This is that which is Moral in the fourth Commandment; namely, that not one Day, but as much as may be our whole lives be spent in the worship of God; seeking his Kingdom and the Righteousness thereof, and furthering the edification of our neighbor. Hereunto it belongeth, that we should serve God, acknowledge and celebrate his benefits, pray to him in Spirit, and testify our faith by our Confession.

§. 55 An. It is hard to discover how any of these things have the least respect to the fourth Commandment, much more how the morality of it should consist in them. For all the instances mentioned, are indeed required in the first precept of the Decalogue, that only excepted of taking care to promote the edification of our neighbor, which is the sum and substance of the second table, expressed by our Savior by loving our neighbor as ourselves. To live to 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 does the general consideration of time, with respect to these duties belong; namely, that we should live to God, while 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 good things to come, as were all other Ceremonial institutions. But that the same thing should be moral, and a shadow is a contradiction. That which is a shadow, can in no sense be said to be moral, nor on the contrary. The Sabbath therefore was merely Ceremonial.

An. It does 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. Yes, the contrary is evident. For the law of it, was given before the first promise of Christ, as we have proved; and that in the state of innocency, and under the Covenant of Works in perfect force, wherein there was no respect 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 a head in Christ Jesus. On this account there is an instructive resemblance, between the works of one sort and of the other. So the rest of God after the works of the old creation, is answered by the rest of the Son of God, upon his laying the foundation of the new heavens and new earth in his resurrection. But that the Sabbath originally, and in its whole nature, should be a free institution to prefigure, and as in a shadow to represent any thing spiritual or mystical, 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 to our relation to God, by virtue of the law of our creation. It continues to retain the same nature, with respect to the Covenant of Grace. What it had annexed to it, what applications it received to the state of the Mosaical Paedagogie, which were temporary, and umbratile, shall be declared afterwards.

§. 57 But it is yet pleaded from an enumeration of the parts of the fourth Commandment, that there can be nothing moral, as to our purpose in it. And these are said to be three. First, the determination of the seventh day to be a day of rest. Secondly, the rest itself commanded on that day. Thirdly, the sanctification of that rest to 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 to a positive command. Neither is the third moral, being only the means or manner of performing that worship which is moral.

An. It will not be granted, that this is a sufficient analysis or distribution of the parts of this command. The principal subject matter of it is omitted, namely, the observation of one day in seven 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 vanishes. 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 to a divine positive command. But a rest from our own works, which might be of use and advantage to us, which by the law of our creation we are to attend to in this world, that we may intend and apply ourselves to the worship of God, and solemnly express our universal dependance upon him in all things; a rest representing the rest of God in his covenant with us, and observed as a pledge of our 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 to by the law of our creation, and which by the moral reason of this command is enjoined to us, on one day in seven; and in these things consists the morality of this precept, on whose account it has 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 solemn worship of God to be required in this command, as is by all generally acknowledged, and let a position be practically advanced against this, we insist on, namely, that one day in seven is the time determined and limited for that purpose, and we shall quickly perceive the mischievous consequents of it. For when men have taken out of the hand of God the division between the time that is allowed to 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 to him, or there must an umpirage of it be committed to others, either the Church or the Magistrate. And hence we may expect as many different determinations and limitations of time, as there are distinct ecclesiastical or political powers among Christians. What variety, changeableness would hence ensue, what confusion this would cast all the disciples of Christ into, according to the prevalency of superstition or profaneness in the minds of those who claim this power of determining and limiting the time of public worship, is evident to all. The instance of holy days as they are commonly called, will farther manifest what of it self lyes naked under every rational eye. The institution and observation of them was ever resolved into the moral part of this command, for the dedicating of some part of our time to 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 grew an unsupportable yoke to the people; another reduces this number into a narrower compass, a third rejects them all, and no two Churches that are independent ecclesiastically and politically one on the other, do agree about them. And so will, and must the matter fall out as to the especial day whereof we discourse, when once the determination of it by divine authority is practically rejected. As yet men deceive themselves in this matter, and pretend that they believe otherwise than indeed they do. Let them come once soberly to join their opinion of their liberty and their practice together, actually rejecting the divine limitation of one day in seven, and they will find their own consciences under more disorder, 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 observation of New Moons, and annual Feasts with Jubilees and the like; in all which the same general equity is supposed, and a ceremonial day limited and determined. And if it be so, as far as I can understand; we may as lawfully observe New Moons and Jubilees, as a weekly day of rest, according to the custom of all Churches.

§. 58 The words of the Apostle Paul (Colossians 2:16, 17) are at large insisted on to prove that the Sabbath was only typical and a shadow of things future. Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink or in respect of an holy day, or of the New Moon ([〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉]) 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 observation 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.

An. This place must be afterwards considered; I shall here only briefly speak to it. And (1.) it is known and confessed, that at that time all Judaical observations of days, or the days which they religiously observed, whether feasts or fasts, weekly, monthly, or annual were by themselves and all 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. It must therefore necessarily be allowed, that there were two sorts of Sabbaths among 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 to the same ends in general, became from their analogy thereunto to be called Sabbaths also, yes, were so called by God himself, as has 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 the peculiar Church worship of the Israelites, and so belonged to 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 says 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 to something that is common to both. Allow therefore the distinctions 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.

It is evident, that the Apostle in this place deals with them who endeavored to introduce Judaism absolutely, or the whole system of Mosaical ceremonies into the observation of the Christian Church. Circumcision, their feasts and new moons, their distinctions of meats and days he mentions directly in this place. And therefore he deals about these things so far as they were Judaical, or belonged to the economy of Moses, and no otherwise. If any of them fell under any other consideration, so far as they did so, he designs not to speak of them. Now those things only were Mosaical, 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 to 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 to that dispensation of the Covenant which the posterity of Abraham was then brought into, it was a shadow, and it taken away by Christ. Therewith falls its limitation to the seventh day, its rigorous observation, its penal sanction, its being a sign between God and that people, in a word, every thing in it, and about it, that belonged to the then present administration of the Covenant, or was accommodated to the Judaical Church or State. But now if it be proved, that a septenary sacred rest was appointed in Paradise, that it has its foundation in the law of creation, that thereon it was observed antecedently to the institution of Mosaical 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 has no concern in these words of the Apostle.

It cannot be said, that the religious observance of one day in seven as an holy rest to 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 were so; for they all have observed and do so observe such a day. I shall not now dispute about the authority of the Church to appoint days to holy or religious uses, to make holy days. Let it be granted to be, whatever any yet has pretended or pleaded that it is. But this I say, that where God by his authority had commanded the observation of a day to himself, and the Lord Christ by the same authority has 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 to him, and for the celebration of his solemn worship on one day in seven. The whole command of God hereof, is now pleaded to be dissolved, and all obligation from there to its observation 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 to impose the observance of it, on the disciples of Christ. Be it that the Church may appoint holy days 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 on this hypothesis, 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, by the constant practice and injunctions thereof.

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. It is true; that which is moral, so far as it is moral, cannot be a shadow. We therefore say, that the weekly observation of a day of rest, from the foundation of the world, whereunto a general obligation was laid on all men to its observation, the command whereof was a part of the moral law of God, was no shadow, nor is so called by the Apostle, nor did 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 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 an holy rest to God, has nothing Aaronical or typical in it, but has its foundation in the light of nature as directed by the works of God and his rest thereon. For its limitation precisely to the last day of the week, with other directions and injunctions for and in the manner of its observance, they were Mosaical, and as a shadow are departed, as we shall manifest in our ensuing exercitations.

But yet neither can it be absolutely proved, if we would insist thereon, that the weekly Sabbath is in any sense intended in these words of the Apostle. For he may design the sabbatical years which were instituted among that people, and probably now pressed by the Judaizing teachers on the Gentile proselytes. Nor will the exception put in from some of the Rabbins, that the sabbatical years were not to be observed out of the land of Canaan, from which Colosse was far enough distant, reinforce the argument to this purpose. For as men in one place, may have their consciences exercised and bound with the opinion of what is to be done in another, though they cannot engage in the practice of it while they are absent, so our Apostle charges 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.