Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

To this we may refer some other Commands, as that of appointing the time of solemn and public Worship, the seventh day; though the Worship of God be a part of the Law of Nature, yet the appointing a particular day, wherein he would be more formally and solemnly acknowledged than on other days, was grounded upon his absolute right of Legislation: For there was nothing in the time it self, that could render that day more Holy than another, though God respected his finishing the work of Creation in his institution of that day. Gen. 2.3. Such were the Ceremonial Commands of Sacrifices, and Washings under the Law, and the Commands of Sacraments under the Gospel: The one to last till the first Coming of Christ, and his Passion; the other to last till the second Coming of Christ, and his Triumph. Thus he made natural and unavoidable uncleannesses to be sins, and the touching a dead Body to be pollution, which in their own nature were not so.

To this we may referre some other Commands, as that of appointing the time of solemn and public Worship, the seventh day; though the Worship of God be a part of the Law of Nature, yet the appointing a particular day, wherein he would be more formally and solemnly acknowledged than on other days, was grounded upon his absolute right of Legislation: For there was nothing in the time it self, that could render that day more Holy than another, though God respected his finishing the work of Creation in his institution of that day. Gen. 2.3. Such were the Ceremonial Commands of Sacrifices, and Washings under the Law, and the Commands of Sacraments under the Gospel: The one to last till the first Coming of Christ, and his Passion; the other to last till the second Coming of Christ, and his Triumph. Thus he made natural and unavoidable uncleannesses to be sins, and the touching a dead Body to be pollution, which in their own nature were not so.

4. The Dominion of God appears in the Moral Law, and his Majesty in publishing it. As the Law of Nature was writ by his own Fingers in the Nature of man, so it was Engraven by his own finger in the Tables of Stone;