A53694:195
Exercitations concerning the name, original, nature, use, and continuance of a day of sacred…
Exercitations concerning the name, original, nature, use, and continuance of a day of sacred rest wherein the original of the Sabbath from the foundation of the world, the morality of the Fourth commandment with the change of the Seventh day are enquired into : together with an assertion of the divine institution of the Lord's Day, and practical directions for its due observation / by John Owen.
London: printed by R.W. for Nath. Ponder, 1671
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Moreover in this Worship it is required by the same Law of our Beings that we should serve God with All that we do receive from him. No man can think otherwise. For is there any thing that we have received from God, that shall yield him no Revenue of Glory, whereof we ought to make no acknowledgement unto him? Who dare once so to imagine? Among the things thus given us of God, is our Time. And this falls under a double consideration in this matter. First, as it is an inseparable Moral Circumstance of the Worship required of us; so it is necessarily included in the Command of Worship it self, not directly but consequentially. Secondly, It is in it self a part of our vouchsafements from God, for our own use and purposes in this world. So upon its own account firstly and directly, a separation of a part of it unto God and his Solemn Worship is required of us. It remains only to inquire what part of Time it is, that is and will be accepted with God. This is declared and determined in the fourth Commandment to be the seventh part of it, or one day in seven. And this is that which is Positive in the Command, which yet as to the foundation, formal Reason, and main substance of it, is Moral. And these things are true, but yet do not express the whole Nature of the Sabbath, which we must farther enquire into.
§. 9 And first it must be observed, that wherever there is mention of a Sabbatical Rest, as enjoined unto men for their Observation, there is still respect unto a Rest of God that preceded it, and was the cause and foundation of it. In its first mention, ⟨p. 127⟩Gods Rest is given as the Reason of his sanctifying and blessing a Day of Rest for us, whence also it hath its Name. Gen. 2. 2, 3. God blessed and sanctified the seventh day [Greek or Hebrew], because he sabbatized thereon himself. And so it is expressed, and the same Reason is given of it in the fourth Commandment. God wrought six days and rested the seventh; therefore must we rest, Exod. 20. 11. The same is observed in the New Creation as we shall see afterwards, and more fully in our Exposition of