_ brought into such disorder and confusion by the entrance of sin, as
that the law of nature was utterly insufficient to enable us unto, or
388 OF THE JUDAICAL SABBATH. [EXERC. Iv.
to guide us in, our living unto God according to the tenor of the first covenant.
There were and are, indeed, general notions of good and evil inde- libly planted on the faculties of our souls, with a power of judging concerning our actions and moral practices, whether they are con- formable unto those notions with respect unto the superior judgment of God. But besides the impairing of the principles of these notions, before mentioned, they were of old variously obscured, perverted, and stifled, by customs, prejudices, and the power of sin in the world, so as that they were of little useasunto a due performance of covenant duties, indeed of none at all in reference unto any acceptation with God.
Wherefore, God erecting his church, and renewing the knowledge of himself and man’s duty towards him, in the posterity of Abraham, be gave unto them afresh, in the first place, the precepts of the law and covenant of nature, for the guide and rule of their obedience. And that this might now be permanent, he reduced the substance of the whole law unto “ten words,” or commands, writing them in tables of stone, which he appointed to be sacredly kept amongst them. The law thus declared and written by him was the same, I say, ma- terially, and for the substance of it, with the law of our creation, or the original rule of our covenant obedience unto God. Yet in it, as thus transcribed, there was an innovation both in its form and principle of obligation. For as to its form or directive power, it was now made external and objective unto the mind of man, which be- fore was principally internal and subjective. And the immediate obligation unto its observation among that people was now from the promulgation of it on mount Sinai, and the delivery of it unto them thereon. Hence it was prefaced with motives peculiar to their state and condition, and its observation continually pressed on them after- wards with arguments taken from their peculiar relation unto God, with his love and benefits unto them. This gave it a new respect, because there was nothing originally in it nor belonging unto it but what was equally common unto all mankind. Now, this alteration in the law and covenant of creation, as applied unto the church of the Israelites, did also affect the law of the Sabbath, which was a part of it. It was now no more to them a mere moral command only, equally regarding all mankind, but had a temporary respect given unto it, which was afterwards to be abolished and taken away. So was it with the whole law, and so was it with the Sabbath in particular. To take up, therefore, the observation of it, as appointed in the decalogue, not as a material transcript of the law of nature merely, but as under its renovation to the church of Israel, is a groundless and unwarrantable going over into a part of abolished Judaism; for,— :
SECT. 3.] OF THE JUDAICAL SABBATH. 389
Secondly, The law was renewed as an ingredient into that eco- nomy under which God was pleased to bring his church at that time, before the exhibition of the promise, or the accomplishment of it. And sundry things are to be observed herein :—
(1.) That God did not absolutely brmg that people under the covenant of works in all the rigour of it, according to its whole law and tenor, to stand or fall absolutely by its promises or threatenings; for although the law contained the whole rule of the covenant, and on the considerations to be afterwards mentioned it is often called the “covenant of God” with that people, yet were they not abso- lutely tied up unto it and coneluded by it, as to the eternal issue of living-unto God. This arose from the interposition of the promise; for the promise of grace in Christ being given upon the first entrance of sin, for the relief and salvation of the elect, and being solemnly renewed unto Abraham and his seed four hundred and thirty years before the giving of the law unto his posterity, there was a blessed relief provided therein against the curse and threatenings annexed to the first covenant for all them that betook themselves unto it and made use of it. Notwithstanding, I say, this renovation of the first coyenant materially unto them, they were so far freed from its cove- nant terms as that they had a relief provided against what they could not answer in it, with the consequences thereof.
(2.) From the nature and tenor of the covenant of works, so re- newed amongst that people, there was begotten in their minds such a respect unto the rigour of its commands, the manner of their ob- servance, or of obedience unto them, with the dread of its curse, awfully denounced amongst them, as brought a servile and bondage frame of spirit upon them in all wherein they had to do with God, by virtue of the law and rule of that covenant. This frame of spirit, as that which stands in direct opposition unto the freedom and liberty purchased for us by Jesus Christ, to serve God in righteous- ness and holiness without fear all our days, is much insisted on by the apostle Paul, especially in his epistles to the Romans and Gala- tians. And in their observation of the Sabbath in particular they were under this bondage, filling them with many serupulous anxieties, which arose, not from the law of the Sabbath itself, as ori- ginally given unto man in the state of imnocency, but from the accommodation of the law thereof unto them after the entrance of sin. And hereby their Sabbath rest became unto them a great part of their wearying, burdensome yoke, which is taken off in Christ.