304 OF THE ORIGINAL OF THE SABBATH. [ EXERC. IT.
therein obtained a good report, gives us the highest assurance. Now, of all obedience unto God faith is the principle and founda- tion, without which it is impossible to please him, Heb. xi. 6. This faith doth always (and must always so do) respect the command and promise of God, which gives it its formal nature; for no other principle, though it may produce the like actions with it, is divine faith but what respects the command and promise of God, so as to be steered, directed, guided, and bounded by them. Unto this solemn worship of God, which in faith they thus attended unto, some stated time is indispensably necessary; and therefore that some portion of time should be set apart to that purpose is ac- knowledged almost by all to be a dictate of the law of nature, and we shall afterwards prove it so to be. What ground have we now to imagine that the “holy men of old” were left without divine direction in this matter? That a designation and limitation of this time was, or would have been, of great use and advantage unto them, none can deny. Considering, therefore, the dealings of God with them, and how frequently he renewed unto them the knowledge of his will by occasional revelations, it cannot be supposed that divine grace was wanting unto them herein. Besides, in what they did in this kind, they are expressly said to “ keep the way of the Lorp,” Gen. xvii. 19; and in particular, “his charge, his commandments, his statutes, and his laws,” chap. xxvi. 5,—which comprise all the institutions and ordinances of divine worship. That they did any thing of themselves, from their own wisdom and invention, in the worship of God, is nowhere intimated, nor are they anywhere com- mended on the account thereof; yea, to do a thing in faith, as they did whatever of this kind they did, and that as a part of the wor- ship of God, is to do it upon the command of God. And the insti- tution mentioned, upon the reason of God’s rest joined with it, is so express as that none can doubt a practice conformable unto it by all that truly feared the Lord, although the particulars of it should not be recorded.
12. It was from no other original that the tradition of the sacred- ness of the septenary number, and the fixing of the first period of time (next unto that which is absolutely natural, and appearing so to the senses, of night and day, with the composition of the night and day into one measure of time, which was also from the original creation and conjunction of evening and morning into one day) unto a septenary revolution of days, was so catholic in the world, and that both amongst nations in general, and particularly amongst individual persons that were inquiring and contemplative. Not only that sort of philosophers who expressed their apprehensions mystically by numbers, as the Pythagoreans and some of the Pla--
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tonics, who from hence took the occasion of that way of teaching and instruction, esteemed the septenary number sacred, but those also did so who resolved their observations into things natural or physical; for in all their notions and speculations about the Pleiades and Triones in heaven, lunar changes, sounds of instruments, varia- tions in the age of man, critical days in bodily distempers, and transaction of affairs private and public, they found a respect there- unto. It must therefore be granted, that there is a great impres- sion left on the whole creation of a regard to this number, whereof instances might be multiplied. The ground hereof was no other but an emanation from the old tradition of the creation of the world, and the rest that ensued on the seventh day. So say the ancient verses, which some ascribe to Linus, others to Callimachus :—
‘Exrra 2 wdvre riruxras ty odpauyy corepoeves
°Ey nuxrois Qavive’ txireAromtvors tviavroist—
“Tn seyen all things were perfected in the starry heavens, which appear in their orbs or circles, in the rolling or voluble years.”
This was the true original of their notions concerning the sacred- ness of the number seven. But when this was obscured or lost amongst them, as were the greatest and most important sacred truths communicated unto man in his creation, they, many of them, retain- ing the principle of the sacred number, invented other reasons for it of no importance. Some of these were arithmetical, some harmo- nical or musical notions, But were their reasons for it never so infirm, the thing itself they still retained. Hence were their nota- tions of this number. It was termed by them the Virgin, and Pallas, and Kapés, which sacredly is, saith Hesychius, 6 ray ixrd dpiduds, “the number of seven.” It is hard to give any other account whence all these conceptions should arise besides that insisted on. From the original impression made on the minds of men by the in- struction of the law of creation, which they were made under, and the tradition of the creation of the world in six days, closed with an additional day of sacred rest, did these notions and obscure remem- brances of the specialty of that number arise. And although we have not yet inquired what influence into the law of creation, as in- structive and directive of our actions, the six days’ work had, with its consequential day of rest, yet all will grant that whatever it was, it was far more clear and cogent unto man in innocency, directly obliged by that law, and able to understand its voice in all things, than it could be to them who, by the effects of it, made some dark inquiries after it; who were yet able to conclude that there was some- what sacred in the number of seven, though they knew not well what.