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 wor- ship of God, as he was a rational creature made to give glory unto him, so the instruction he received by the works and rest of God, as made under a covenant, taught him that one day in seven was required unto that purpose, as also to be a pledge of his resting with God. It may be, it will be said that man could not know that the world was made in six 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 unto 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 the new covenant. (2.) However, what God instructed him in, even by revelation, as to the due consideration and improvement of the things that belonged unto the law of his creation, that is to be es- teemed as a part thereof. Institutions of things by special revela- tion, 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 unto the general law of obedience; such was the especial command given unto man to till and keep the garden, Gen. ii. 15, or to dress and improve the place of his habitation, for this in general the law of his creation required. Now this God did, both as to his works and his rest. Neither do I know any one as yet that questioneth 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 passeth as
SECT. 17-19.] OF THE CAUSES OF THE SABBATH. 345
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 unto their purpose. Nor, on the other side, can it be once rationally imagined that if they had knowledge hereof, and therewithal of the rest which ensued thereon, they had no re- gard unto it in the worship of God.
18. And thus was the Sabbath, or the observation of one day in seven as a sacred rest, fixed on the same moral grounds with mono- gamy, or the marriage of one man to one woman only at the same time; which, from the very fact and order of the creation, our Sa- viour proves to have been an unchangeable part of the law of it. For because God made them two single persons, male and female, fit for individual conjunction, he concludes that this course of life they were everlastingly obliged not to alter nor transgress. As, therefore, men may dispute that polygamy is not against the law of nature, because it was allowed and practised by many, by most of those who of old observed and improved the light and rule thereof to the uttermost, when yet the very “factum” and order of the creation is sufficient to evince the contrary; so although men should dispute that the observation of one day’s sacred rest in seven is not of the light or 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, are sufficient to evince the contrary. And in the renewing of the law upon mount Sinai, God taught the people not only by the words that he spake, but also by the works that he wrought. Yea, he instructed them in a moral duty, not only by what he did, but by what he did not; for he declares that they ought to make no images of or unto him, because he made no re- presentation of himself unto them. “They saw no manner of simi- litude on the day that the Lorp spake unto them in Horeb out of the midst of the fire,” Deut. iv. 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 ob-