SECT. 20.] OF THE ORIGINAL OF THE SABBATH. 319
ledged among the heathen themselves,—it is not anywhere asserted or intimated in the decalogical compendium of it, unless it be in that prohibition. It sufticeth, then, that even among the Gentiles God vindicated the authority of his own Sabbaths, by condemning their impious feasts and abominable practices in them.
20. By the same learned writer (p. 52), the testimony of the Jews in this case is pleaded. They generally affirm that the Sabbath was given unto them only, and not to the rest of the nations. Hence it is by them called the “bride of the synagogue.” Nor do they reckon the command of it amongst the Noachical precepts, which they esteem all men obliged unto, and whose observation they im- posed on the proselytes of the gate, or the uncircumcised strangers that lived amongst them. Nay, they say that others were liable to punishment if they did observe it. For that part of the command, “Nor the stranger that is within thy gates,” they say, it intends no more but that no Israelite should compel him to work, or make any advantage of his labour; but for himself, he was not bound to ab- stain from labour, but might exercise himself therein at his own diseretion for his advantage. These things are pleaded at large, and confirmed with many testimonies and instances, by the learned Sel- den; and from him are they again by others insisted on. But the truth is, there is not any thing of force in the conceits of these Tal- mudical Jews in the least to weaken the principle we have laid down and established; for,—
(1.) As hath been showed, this opinion is not indeed catholic amongst them; but many, and those of the most learned of the masters, do oppose it, as we have proved already. And others may be added to them, whose opinion, although it be peculiar, yet it wanteth not a fair probability of truth; for they say that the first part of the precept, “ Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy,” hath respect to the glorifying of God on the account of his original work and rest. This, therefore, belongs unto all mankind. But as for that which follows, about the six days’ labour, and the seventh day’s cessation or quiet, it had respect unto the bondage of the Israelites in Egypt, and their deliverance thence, and was therefore peculiar unto them. So R. Ephraim in Keli Jacar. And hence, it may be, the word “remember” hath respect unto the command of the Sabbath from the foundation of the world. And therefore when the command is repeated again, with peculiar respect to the church of Israel, as the motive from the Egyptian bondage and deliverance is expressed, so the caution of remembering is omitted, Deut. v. 12, and transferred to this other occasion, “ Remember that thou wast a servant,” verse 15.
(2.) The sole foundation of it is laid in a corrupt and false tradi-
320 OF THE ORIGINAL OF THE SABBATH. [EXERC. II.
tion or conceit of the giving of the law of the Sabbath in Marah; which we have before disproved, and which is despised as vain and foolish by most learned men.
(3.) The assertors of this opinion do wofully contradict themselves, in that they generally acknowledge that the Sabbath was observed by Abraham and other patriarchs, as it should seem, at least four hundred years before its institution.
(4.) It is none of the seven called “ Noachical precepts,” for they contain not the whole law of nature, or precepts of the decalogue, and one of them is ceremonial in their sense; so that nothing can hence be concluded against the original or nature of this law.
(5.) That an uncircumcised stranger was liable to punishment if he observed the Sabbath is a foolish imagination, not inferior unto that of some others of them, who affirm that “all the Gentiles shall keep the Sabbath one day in seven in hell.”
(6.) For the distinction which they have invented, that a prose- lyte of the gate might work for himself, but not for his master, it is one of the many whereby they make void the law of God through their traditions. Those who of old amongst them feared God, know- ing their duty to instruct their households and families,—that is, their children and servants,—in the ways and worship of God, walked by another rule.
21. It is further pleaded by the same author (p. 53), “That the Gentiles knew nothing of this sabbatical feast, but that when it came to their knowledge they derided and exploded it as a parti- cular superstition of the Jews.” To this purpose many instances out of the historians and poets who wrote in the time of the first Roman emperors are collected by Selden, which we are again directed unto. “Now it could not be, if it had been originally appointed unto all mankind, that they should have been such strangers unto it.” But this matter hath been discoursed before. And we have showed that sundry of the first writers of the Christian church were other- wise minded: for they judged and proved that there was a notion at least of the “seventh day’s sacred rest” diffused throughout the world; and they lived nearer the times of the Gentiles’ practice than those by whom their judgment and testimony are so peremptorily rejected. It is not unlikely but that they might be mistaken in some of the testimonies whereby they confirm their observation; yet this hinders not but that the observation itself may be true, and suffi- ciently confirmed by other instances which they make use of,