A practical exposition of the X. Commandments with a resolution of several momentous questions…A practical exposition of the X. Commandements with a resolution of several momentous questions…

4. Yet lest we should seem to admit somewhat changeable ⟨p. 243⟩in the very command it self precisely considered, we would put difference betwixt the commanding part of the Law, and its explicatory part; the command may be moral and indefinite, although some things in reasons and motives were not so; as in the preface which enforceth all the commands, and in the promise annexed to the fifth, there was something peculiar to that people, yet cannot we cast off all because of that; suppose there had no more been in this fourth command, but remember the day of rest to keep it holy, that would not have inferred the Seventh day, though we think the Jews, because of its former sanctification, would have been obliged to keep that day by virtue of this command: And suppose that in the explications or reasons there may be something added peculiar to that people (which cannot be a Seventh day, but at the most (if any thing) the Seventh day) yet that which is in the commanding part, will still stand moral, to wit, that the day of rest should be remembered; and if it can be made out that it was determined to the Jews to sanctify the Seventh day (though it were in the reasons added) and to us afterward to sanctify the First day, they will be both found to be a Seventh day, and a day of rest, and therefore to be remembered and to be sanctified; this would resolve into the same thing on the matter; yet we conceive it safest to assert that in this command God hath set apart a Seventh day to himself, which is to be sanctified by us, by our application of it to holy uses, but doth not by it expressly, directly, and primarily bind to the Seventh day, but secondarily and by consequence, to wit, as it was otherwise before declared by him, and so it bindeth now that same way to the sanctifying of the First day of the week, as being now revealed by God, just as in the former instances or examples we touched upon.

4. Yet lest we should seem to admit somewhat changeable ⟨p. 243⟩in the very command it self precisely considered, we would put difference betwixt the commanding part of the Law, and its explicatory part; the command may be moral and indefinite, although some things in reasons and motives were not so; as in the preface which inforceth all the commands, and in the promise annexed to the fifth, there was somthing peculiar to that people, yet cannot we cast off all because of that; suppose there had no more been in this fourth command, but remember the day of rest to keep it holy, that would not have inferred the Seventh day, though we think the Jews, because of its former sanctification, would have been obliged to keep that day by vertue of this command: And suppose that in the explications or reasons there may be something added peculiar to that people (which cannot be a Seventh day, but at the most (if any thing) the Seventh day) yet that which is in the commanding part, will still stand moral, to wit, that the day of rest should be remembred; and if it can be made out that it was determined to the Jews to sanctifie the Seventh day (though it were in the reasons added) and to us afterward to sanctifie the First day, they will be both found to be a Seventh day, and a day of rest, and therefore to be remembred and to be sanctified; this would resolve into the same thing on the matter; yet we conceive it safest to assert that in this command God hath set apart a Seventh day to himself, which is to be sanctified by us, by our application of it to holy uses, but doth not by it expresly, directly, and primarily bind to the Seventh day, but secondarily and by consequence, to wit, as it was otherwayes before declared by him, and so it bindeth now that same way to the sanctifying of the First day of the week, as being now revealed by God, just as in the former instances or examples we touched upon.