(1.) Instances may be given, and have been given by all writers concerning the Hebrew tongue, wherein the prefixed letters, some- times answering the Greek prepositive articles, are redundant; and if at all emphatical, yet they do not at all limit, specify, or deter- mine. See Ps.i. 4; Eccles. ii, 14; Lev. xviii. 5. The observation, therefore, of prefixing 3 to NaY”—which may possibly denote an excellency in the thing itself, but tends nothing to the determina- tion of a certain day, but as it is afterwards declared to be one of seven,—is too weak to bear the weight of the inference intended. Nor will this be denied by any who ever aright considered the various use and frequent redundancy of that prefix.
(2.) The Sabbath, or rest of a seventh day, was known and ob- served from the foundation of the world, as hath been proved. And
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therefore if from the prefix we are to conclude a limitation or de- termination to be intended in the words, “ Remember the Sabbath day,” yet it respects only the original Sabbath, or the Sabbath in respect of its original, and not any new institution of it; for sup- posing the observation of the Sabbath to have been before in use, whether that use were only of late, or a few days before, or of more ancient times, even from the beginning of the world, the command concerning it may be well expressed by Nawm bint Ti2t -—“< Re- member the Sabbath day.”
(8.) Suppose that the Sabbath had received a limitation to the seventh day precisely, in the ordinance given unto that people in the first raining of manna, then doth the observation of that day precisely, by virtue of this command, necessarily take place. And yet the command, which is but the revival of what was required from the foundation of the world, cannot be said to intend that day precisely in the first place: for the reason of and in the original command for a sabbatical rest, was God’s making the world in six days, and resting on the seventh; which requires no more but that in the continual revolution of seven days, six being allowed unto work, one should be observed a sacred rest to God. These words, therefore, “ Remember the Sabbath day,” referring unto the pri- mitive command and reason of it, as is afterwards declared in the body of the law, require no more but a weekly day of rest, where- unto the seventh day is reduced, as added by an especial ordinance. And the reason of this commandment, from the works of God and the order of them, is repeated in the decalogue, because the instruc- tion given us by them being a part of the law of our creation more subject unto a neglect, disregard, and forgetfulness, than those other parts of it which were wholly innate to the principles of our own nature, it was necessary that the remembrance of it should be so expressly revived, when in the other precepts there is only a tacit excitation of our own inbred light and principles.
(4.) The emphatical expression insisted on, “ Remember the Sab- bath day,” hath respect unto the singular necessity, use, and benefit of this holy observance, as also to that neglect and decay in its observation which, partly through their own sin, partly through the hardships that it met withal in the world, the church of former ages had fallen into. And what it had lately received of a new institution, with reference unto the Israelites, falls also under this command, or is reduced unto it, as a ceremonial branch under its proper moral head, whereunto it is annexed. And whereas it is greatly urged, “That the command of the seventh day precisely is not the command of one day in seven, and that what God hath deter- mined, as in this matter the day is, ought not to be indefinitely by
376 ‘OF THE CAUSES OF THE SABBATH. [ EXERC. III.
us considered,” it may be all granted without the least prejudice unto the cause wherein we are engaged; for although the institu- tion of the seventh day precisely be somewhat distinet from one day in seven, as containing a determinate limitation of that which in the other notion is left indefinite, yet this hinders not but that God may appoint the one and the other, the one in the moral rea- son of the law, the other by an especial determination and institu- tion. And this especial institution is to continue, unless it be abro- gated or changed by his own authority; which it may be without the least impeachment of the moral reason of the whole law, and a new day be limited by the same authority, which hath been done accordingly, as we shall afterwards declare.
52. It is yet further pleaded, Disquisit., p. 9-12, “ That no dis- tinction can be made between a weekly Sabbath and the seventh day precisely. And if any such difference be asserted, then if one of them be appointed in the fourth commandment, the other is not; for there are not two Sabbaths enjoined in it, but one. And it is evident that there never was of old but one Sabbath. The Sabbath observed under the old testament was that required and prescribed in the fourth commandment; and so, on the other side, the Sabbath re- quired in the decalogue was that which was observed under the old testament, and that only. Two Sabbaths, one of one day in seven, and the other of the seventh day precisely, are not to be fancied. The seventh day, and that only, was the Sabbath of the old testa- ment and of the decalogue.” These things, I say, are at large pleaded by the forementioned author.