SECT. 35-37. ] OF THE CAUSES OF THE SABBATH. 359
founded in the law of nature, and had its force from thence. We may then confidently assert, that what God requireth equally in all estates of the church, that is moral, and of an everlasting obligation unto 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 unto it, Gen. ii. 2, 3. It will, God assisting, be further discoursed and con- firmed 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, hath also been before confirmed. Many excep- tions, 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 vofd 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 anti- quity. 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 unto the serpent, Gen. iii. 15, “J will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” The words in themselves seem obscure unto 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, occasion, 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 unto and of their obedience. But yet it will be hard, from the records of Scrip- ture, 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 prac- tice 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. Wherefore, from the record of a command, we may conclude unto a suitable practice, though it be not recorded; and from a re- corded approved practice, on the other side, we may conclude unto the command or institution of the thing practised, though it be nowhere plainly recorded. Let unprejudiced men consider those words, Gen.
360 OF THE CAUSES OF THE SABBATH, [ EXERC. IIL.
ii. 2, 8, and they will find the command and institution of the Sab- bath as clear and conspicuous in them, as the promise of grace in Christ is in those 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 obser- vation 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 no- where expressly recorded in the story of their lives.
38. Under the law,—that is, after the giving of it in the wilder- ness,—it is granted that the portion of time insisted on was pre- cisely required to be dedicated unto 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 thence to question whether it was so observed or no.
All, therefore, is secure unto the great alteration that was made in instituted worship under the gospel. And to proceed unto 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 unto by the apostolical or first churches, merely <iraZiag gratia, or to keep good order and de- corum amongst them, without respect unto 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 obserya- tion. 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 lie 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 con- sent 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 observation continued by the whole church, in and under the approbation of God, whereof none ever