SECT. 38, 39.] OF THE CAUSES OF THE SABBATH. 361
doubted, by a reassumption of it through the authority of the church, after God had taken off his own from it, is a most vain imagination. 39. I dispute not of what the church may appoint, for good order’s sake, to be observed in religious assemblies; but this I dare say confidently, that no church nor churches, not all the churches in the world, have power by common consent to ordain any thing in the worship of God, as a part of it, which God had once ordained, com- manded, and required, but now under the gospel ceaseth so to do, as circumcision and sacrifices. But this is the state of the religious observance of one day in seven! None can deny but that formerly it was ordained and appointed of God. And it should seem, accord- ing to this opinion, that he took off the authority of his own com- mand, that the same observance might be continued upon the autho- rity of the church. “Credat Apella!” Neither do the footsteps of the occasion of any such ecclesiastical institution appear anywhere on record in the Scripture, where all things of-an absolute new and arbitrary institution, whether occasional or durable, are taken notice of. There is, indeed, mention made, and that frequently, of the first day of the week being set apart for the assembling of believers for the worship of God, and a solid reason is insinuated why that espe- cial day in particular ought so to be; but why one day in seven should be constantly observed to the purpose mentioned, no reason, no account is given in the New Testament, other than why men should not lie or steal. Nor hath any man a ground to imagine that there was an intercision of a sabbatical observance, by the in- terposition of any time, between the observation of the seventh day and of the first of the week, for the same ends and purposes, though not absolutely in the same manner. If there be any indications, proofs, evidences, that the first churches continued without the observation of one day in seven, after they desisted from having a religious respect unto the seventh day, before they had the same re- _gard to the first of the week unto this purpose, I wish they might be produced, for they would be of good weight in this matter; but as yet no such thing is made to appear. For if the obligation of the precept for observing one day in seven, as a sacred rest to God, may be suspended in any change of the outward state and condition of the church, it cannot be esteemed to be moral. I speak not of the actual observance of the thing commanded,—which, for many causes, may occasionally and temporarily be superseded,—but of the obliging force and power in the command itself, which, if it be moral, is perpetual, and not capable of interruption. Now, testimonies we have that sundry persons, not sufficiently instructed in the liberty of the gospel and the law of its obedience, observed both the days, the seventh and the first,—yea, it may be that for a while some observed
362 OF THE CAUSES OF THE SABBATH. [ EXERC, TIT.
the one day, and some the other; but that any Christians of old thought themselves de facto set at liberty from the religious obser- vation of one day in seven, this neither is nor can be proved.- This practice, then, was universal, and that approved of God, as we shall see afterwards and further in another discourse, now more than once directed unto. Now, what can any man conceive to be the ground of this unvariableness in the commanded and approved observation of one day in seven, in all states, conditions, and.alterations, in and of the church, but that the command for it is part of the moral, unchangeable law? Hereby, therefore, it is confirmed unto us so to be. And, indeed, if every state of the church be founded in an especial work of God, and his rest thereon and complacency therein, as a pledge or testimony of giving his church rest in himself, as else- where shall be fully confirmed, a sabbatical rest must be necessary unto the church in every state and condition, And although abso- lutely another day might have been fixed on under the new testa- ment, and not one in a hebdomadal revolution, because its peculiar works were not precisely finished in six days, yet that season being before fixed and determined by the law of creation, no innovation nor alteration would be allowed therein.
40. There is yet remaining that which is principally to be pleaded in this cause, and which of itself is sufficient to bear the weight of the whole. Now, this is the place which the command for the ob- servation of a Sabbath unto God holds m the decalogue.. Concern- ing this we have no more to inquire, but whether it have obtained a station therein in its own right, or were on some other occasion advanced to that privilege: for if it be free of that society in its own right, or on the account of its origin and birth, the morality of it can never be impeached; if it had only an occasional interest therein, and held it by a lease of time, it may ere this be long since disseized of it. Now, we do not yet dispute whether the seventh day precisely be ordained in the fourth commandment, and do take up the whole nature of it, as the only subject of it, and only required in it. Only, I take it for granted that the observation of one day in seven is required in the command; which is so, because the seventh day, or a seventh day in a septenary revolution, is expressly com- manded.