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394 OF THE JUDAICAL SABBATH. [ EXERC: IV.
what was done amongst them, verse 22. Hereon Moses replieth unto them, verse 23, “This is that which the Lorp hath said, To- morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lorp: bake that which ye will bake,” ete.
This is the first express mention of the Sabbath unto and amongst that people; and it sufficiently declares that this was not the abso- lute original of a sabbatical rest. It is only an appropriation and application of the old command unto them; for the words are not preceptive, but directive. They do not institute any thing new, but direct in the practice of what was before. Hence it is affirmed, verse 29, that God gave them the Sabbath,—namely, in this new donifir’ Matbti of it, and accommodation of it to their present condition; for this new confirmation of it, by withholding of manna on that day, belonged merely and solely unto them, and was the especial limitation of the seventh day precisely, wherein we are not concerned who do live on the “true bread” that came down from heaven. In these words, therefore, “'To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lorn,” there is a certain limitation of the day, a direction for its sanctification, as confirmed by the new sign of withholding manna, all which belonged to them peculiarly; for this was the first time that, as a people, they observed the Sabbath, which in Egypt they could not do, And into this institution and the authority of it must they resolve their practice who adhere unto the observation of the seventh day precisely; for that day is no otherwise confirmed in the decalogue but as it had relation hereunto.
9. The Jews in this place fall into a double mistake about the practical observation of their Sabbath ; for from these words, “ Bake that which ye will bake, and seethe that which ye will seethe, and that which remaineth lay up for you to be kept until the morn- ing,” verse 28, they conclude it to be unlawful to bake or seethe any thing on the Sabbath day, whereas the words have respect only to the manna that was to be preserved. And from the words of verse 29, “See, for that the Lorp hath given you the Sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days, abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day,” they have made a rule, yea, many rules, about what motions or removals are lawful on the Sabbath day, and what not. And hence they have bound themselves with many anxious and scrupulous observances, though the injunction itself do purely and solely respect the people in the wilderness, that they should not go out into the fields to look for manna on that day; which some of them having done, verse 27, an occasion was taken from thence for this injunction. And hereunto do some of the heathen writers ascribe the original of the sabbatical rest among the Jews, supposing
SECT. 9-11.] OF THE JUDAICAL SABBATH. 395
that the seventh day after their departure out of Egypt they came to a place of rest, in remembrance whereof they consecrated one day in seven to rest and idleness ever after; whereunto they add other fictions of a like nature. See Tacit. Hist. lib. v.
10. Not long after ensued the giving of the law on Sinai, Exod. xx. That the decalogue is a summary of the law of nature, or the moral law, is by all Christians acknowledged, nor could the heathens of old deny it. And it is so perfectly. Nothing belongs unto the law which is not comprised therein; nor can any one instance be given to the contrary. Nor is there any thing directly and immedi- ately in it but what belongs unto that law. Only God now made in it an especial accommodation of ‘the law of their creation unto that people, whom he was in a second work now forming for him- self, Isa. xliii, 19-21, li. 15, 16. And this he did, as every part of it was capable of being so accommodated. To this purpose he pre- faceth the whole with an intimation of his particular covenant with them, “I am the Lorp thy God;” and addeth thereunto the remembrance of an especial benefit, that they, and they alone, were made partakers of, “that brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage,”—which he did in the pursuit of his especial covenant with Abraham and his seed. This made the obligation to obedience unto the law, as promulgated on mount Sinai, to belong unto them peculiarly. To us it is only an everlasting rule, as de- clarative of the will of God and the law of our creation. The obligation, I say, that arose unto obedience from the promulgation of the law on mount Sinai was peculiar unto the Israelites; and sundry things were then and there mixed with it that belonged unto them alone. And whereas the mercy, the consideration whereof he proposeth as the great motive unto obedience,—which was his bring- ing them out of Egypt, with reference unto his settling-of them in ‘the land of Canaan,—was a typical mercy, it gave the whole law a station in the typical church-state which they were now bringing: into. It altered not the nature of the things commanded, which, for the substance of them, were all moral; but it gave their obedience unto it a new and typical respect, even as it was the tehor of the covenant made with them in Sinai, with respect unto the promised land of Canaan, and their typical state therein.