with many observances of the gospel. We may, for example, in- stance in excommunication, according to the common received notion » ofit. 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 unto its proper end. And according to the rule of this natural equity, that it should be so, have all rational societies amongst men, that knew nothing of the gospel, proceeded, for their own good and preservation. Neither doth 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 unto me is moral because my obedience unto it is a moral duty; for the mora- _ lity of this obedience doth not arise from, nor depend upon, the espe- cial command of it, which, it may be, is positive and arbitrary, but from the respect that it hath unto our dependence, 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 sub- stance of the command itself, that is, the duty required, is moral, the addition of a positive command doth no way impeach its mora- lity, nor suspend the influence of that law whereon its morality doth 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 relat- ing unto it, namely, the precise determination of the day itself in the hebdomadal revolution, depended on a law positive),—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 itself, for the substance of it, and antecedently unto that positive command. The whole law, therefore, of the Sabbath and its observation may be said to be moral-positive; which expression hath 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 unto 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 fowndation 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 sab-
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356 OF THE CAUSES OF THE SABBATH. [ EXERC. IIL.
batical 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 command.
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 unto God on one day in seven; for they say that no such [rule] can be made to appear with that evidence which the common anticipa- tions of the minds of men are accompanied withal. But this objec- tion hath been sufficiently obviated by a due stating of the law of nature, which is not to be confined unto inbred natural anticipations only. And it is certain also that some say the very same concerning the being of God himself, and of the difference between good and evil, namely, that there are no manifest and steadfast presumptions of them in the mind of man; which yet hinders not but that the acknowledgment of a Divine Being, as also the difference that is be- tween good and evil, is natural, and inseparable from the faculties of our souls) Hence Julian in Cyril. lib. v. con. Jul. joins the first and fourth precept together. Saith he, MWofoy edvog zorl, wpdg raw Seay, eéw rod ob wpoonuvyicess Seots Erépors, nal roy wynodnrs THY SaC- Cdrwv, 6 wi ras HArag oleras yphvar QurAdrren évrorAdg'—“ 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 comprising the ob- jective documents that are in the works and order of the creation, to be considered alone by itself in this matter, but in conjunction with the covenant that it was the rule of; for whatever was required of man by virtue of that covenant was part of the moral law of God, or belonged unto the law of his creation. From all which the rest pleaded for to be moral doth arise. And considering the nature of this duty, with the divine positive direction whereby its first prac- tice was regulated, and stood in need so to be, when “ God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it,” it is marvellous that the remain- ing light of nature about it should put forth itself by so many inti- mations as it doth, and in so many instances, to express the first impression 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 unto 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