34. We have seen the least part of the inconveniences that attend this persuasion and its practice, nor do I intend to mention all of them, which readily offer themselves to consideration. One or two more may yet be touched on. For those by whom it is owned do not only affirm that the law of the seventh-day Sabbath is abso- lutely and universally in force, but also that the sanction of it, in its penalty against transgressors, is yet continued! This was, as is known, the death of the offender by stoning. So did God himself determine the application of the curse of the law unto the breach of this command, in the instance of the man that gathered wood on’ that day, who was stoned by his direction, Num. xv. 35. Now, the consideration of: this penalty, as expressive of the curse of the law,
SECT. 34.] OF THE LORD'S DAY. 435
influenced the minds ‘of the Jews into that bondage frame wherein they observed the Sabbath; and this always put them upon many anxious arguings, how they might satisfy the law in keeping the day, so as not to incur the penalty of its transgression. Hence are the questions among the Jews no less endless than those about their genealogies of old, about what work may be done and what not, and how far they might journey on that day; which when they had with some indifferent consent reduced unto two thousand cubits, which they called “a Sabbath day’s journey,” yet where to begin their measure, from what part of the city, where a man dwelt, from his own house, or the synagogue, or the walls, or suburbs of it, they are — not agreed. And the dread hereof was such amongst them of old, from the rigorous justice wherewith such laws with such penalties were imposed on them, that until they had by common consent, in the beginning of the rule of the Asmoneans, agreed to defend themselves from their enemies on that day, they sat still in a neglect of the law of nature, requiring all men to look to their pre- servation against open violence, and suffered themselves to be slain, to their satiety who chose to assault them thereon. And certainly it is the greatest madness in the world, for a people to engage in war that do not think it at least lawful at all times to defend them- selves. And yet they lost their city afterwards by some influence from this superstition. And do men know what they do, when they endeavour to introduce such a bondage into the observance of gospel worship, a yoke and bondage upon the persons and spirits of men which those before us were not able to bear? Is it according to the mind of Christ, that the worship of God, which ought to be “in spirit and in truth,” now under the gospel, should be enforced on men by capital penalties? And let men thus state their principles, ‘The seventh day is to be kept precisely a Sabbath unto the Lord, by virtue of the fourth commandment: for not one day in seven, but the seventh day itself, is rigorously and indispensably enjoined unto observation: and the transgression of this law, not as to the spi- ritual worship to be observed on it, but as to every outward trans- gression, by journeying or other bodily labour, is to be avenged with death :’—undoubtedly, in the practice of these principles, besides that open contradiction which they will fall into unto the spirit, rule, and word of the gospel, they will find themselves in the same entanglements wherein the Jews were and are. And as the cases that may occur about what may be done and what not, what cases of necessity may interpose for relief, are not to be determined by private persons according to their own light and understanding, be- cause they have respect unto the public law, but by them unto whom power is committed to judge upon it and to execute its penalty; so
436 OF THE LORD’S DAY. [EXERC. V.
there will so many cases, and those almost inexplicable, emerge here- on, as will render the whole law an intolerable burden unto Chris- tians. And what, then, is become of “the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free?” and wherein is the pre-eminence of the spiritual worship of the gospel above the carnal ordinances of the law?
35. And this introduceth an evil of no less heinous importance than any of those before enumerated. The precise observation of the seventh day, as such, is undoubtedly no part of the law naturally moral. This we have sufficiently proved before, as I suppose. That law is written in the hearts of believers by virtue of the covenant of grace, and strength is administered thereby unto them for the due performance of the duties that it doth require. Nor is it an institu- tion of the gospel; none ever pretended it so to be. If there be not much against it in the New Testament, yet surely there is nothing for it. In the things that are so, we have ground to expect the assistance of the Spirit of Christ to enable us for their right observa- tion, to the glory of God, and our own edification or increase in grace. But it is a mere precept of the old law as such; and “what the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law.” In all its precepts, xaraxupsever, it exerciseth a severe dominion over the - souls and consciences of them that are under it. And we have no way to extricate ourselves from under that dominion, but by our being dead unto its power and authority as such through the death of Christ ; or by an interest by faith in the benefits which, through his fulfilling and satisfying the law, do redound to the church. But what is required of any one, under the notion of the formal and absolute power of the law, is to be performed in and by that spirit which is administered by the law, and the strength which the law affords; and this indeed is great as to conviction of sin, nothing at all as unto obedience and righteousness. Do men in these things appeal unto the law? unto the law they must go; for I know not any thing that we can expect assistance of gospel grace in or about, but only those things which are originally moral, or things superadded unto them in the gospel itself, to neither of which heads this observation of the seventh day as such can be referred. It is therefore a mere legal duty, properly so called; and in a bondage frame of spirit, without any especial assistance of grace, it must be performed. And how little we are beholden unto those who would, in any one instance, reduce us from the liberty of the gospel unto bondage under the law, our apostle hath so fully declared that it is altogether needless further to attempt the manifestation of it.