11. This in an especial manner was the condition of the fourth commandment. Three things are distinctly proposed in it:—(1.) The command foran observance of a Sabbath day: Exod. xx. 8, “Re- member the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” This contains the whole substance of the command; the formal reason whereof is contained in the last clause of it: “Wherefore the Lorp blessed the Sabbath day, and. hallowed it.” And upon the neglect of the
396 OF THE JUDAICAL SABBATH. [ EXERC. IV.
observance of the Sabbath in former generations, with a prospect of the many difficulties that would arise among the people in the obser- vation of it for the future; as also because the foundation and reason of it in the law of creation, being principally external, in the works and rest of God that ensued thereon, were not so absolutely ingrafted — in the minds of men as continually to evidence and manifest them- selves, as do those of the other precepts, there is an especial note put upon it for remembrance. And whereas it is a positive pre- cept, as is that which follows it, all the rest being negatives, it stood more in need than they of a particular charge and special motives; of which motives one is added also to the next command, being in like manner a positive enunciation. (2.) There is an ex- press determination of this Sabbath to the seventh day, without which it was only included in the original reason of it: Verses 9, 10, “Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lorp thy God.” And herein the day originally fixed in the covenant of works is again limited unto this people, to continue unto the time of the full introduction and establishment of the new covenant. And this limitation of the -seventh day was but the renovation of the command when given unto them in the way of an especial ordinance, Exod. xvi, and be- longs not to the substance of the command itself. Yea, take the command itself without respect unto its explications elsewhere, and it expresseth no such limitation, though virtually, because of the precedent institution, Exod. xvi., it be contained in it. Henee, (3.) There is a prescription for the manner of its observance, accommo- dated unto the state and condition of that people; and that two ways,—[1.] In comprehending things spiritual under things carnal, when yet the carnal are of no consideration in the worship of God, but as they necessarily attend upon things spiritual. Hence that part of the command which concerns the manner of the observation of the Sabbath, to be kept holy, is given out in a prohibition of bodily labour and work, or a command of bodily rest. Butit isthe expression of the rest of God and his complacency in his works and covenant, with the sanctification of the day in obedience to his com- mand, in and by the holy duties of his worship, that is principally intended in it. And this he further intimates afterwards unto them, by his institution of a double sacrifice, to be offered morning and evening on that day. [2.] In the distribution of the people into the capital persons, with their relations, servants, and strangers, that God would have to live amongst them and join themselves unto them. On the whole, it appears that the Sabbath is not now eom- manded to be observed because it is the seventh day, as though the seventh day were firstly and principally intended in the command,
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which, as we have showed, neither the substance of the command nor the reason of it, with which the whole of the precept is begun and ended, will admit of ; but the seventh day is commanded to be observed, because by an antecedent institution it was made to be the Sabbath unto that people, Exod. xvi. (whence it came to fall under the command, not- primarily, but reductively), as it had been on another account from the foundation of the world. The Sabbath, therefore, is originally commanded as one day in seven to be dedi- cated unto a holy rest; and the seventh day, if we respect the order of the days, is added as that especial day which God had de- clared that he would have at that time his Sabbath to be observed on.
Now, all these things in the law of the Sabbath are Mosaical,— namely, the obligation that arose unto its observation from the pro- mulgation of the law unto that people on Sinai; the limitation of the day unto the seventh or last of the week, which was necessary unto that administration of the covenant which God then made use of, and had a respect unto a previous institution; the manner of its observance, suited unto that servile and bondage frame of mind which the giving of the law on mount Sinai did ingenerate in them, as being designed of God so to do; the ingrafting it into the system and series of religious worship then in force, by the double sacrifice annexed unto it, with the various uses in and accommodations it had unto the rule of government in the commonwealth of Israel ;— in all which respects it is abolished and taken away.