Exercitations concerning the name, original, nature, use, and continuance of a day of sacred…

Nor have they who dispute that the Sabbath was neither instituted, known, nor observed before the people of Israel were in the Wilderness, once attempted to confirm their Opinion with this supposition, that the Patriarchs from the Foundation of the world, knew not that the world was made in six days; which yet alone would be effectual unto their purpose. Nor on the other side, can it be once rationally imagined, that if they had knowledge hereof, and therewithal of the Rest which ensued thereon, that they had no regard unto it in the Worship of God.

Nor have they who dispute that the Sabbath was neither instituted, known, nor observed before the people of Israel were in the Wilderness, once attempted to confirm their Opinion with this supposition, that the Patriarchs from the Foundation of the world, knew not that the world was made in six dayes; which yet alone would be effectual unto their purpose. Nor on the other side, can it be once rationally imagined, that if they had knowledge hereof, and therewithal of the Rest which ensued thereon, that they had no regard unto it in the Worship of God.

§. 18 And thus was the Sabbath, or the Observation of one day in seven as a Sacred Rest, fixed on the same Moral grounds with Monogamy, or the marriage of one man to one only Woman at the same time; which from the very fact and Order ⟨p. 148⟩of the Creation, our Saviour proves to have been an unchangeable part of the Law of it. For because God made them two single Persons Male and Female, fit for individual conjunction, he concludes, that this course of life they were everlastingly obliged not to alter, nor transgress. As therefore men may dispute that Polygamy is not against the Law of Nature, because it was allowed and practised by many, by most of those who of old observed and improved the Light and Rule thereof to the uttermost; when yet the very factum and Order of the Creation is sufficient to evince the contrary; so although men should dispute, that the Observation of one Days Sacred Rest in seven, is not of the Light nor Law of Nature, all whose Rules and Dictates they say, are of an easy discovery, and prone to the Observation of all men, which this is not; yet the Order of the Creation, and the Rest of God that ensued thereon, is sufficient to evince the contrary. And in the renewing of the Law upon Mount Sinai, God taught the people not only by the words that he spake, but also by the Works that he wrought. Yea, he instructed them in a Moral Duty, not only by what he did, but by what he did not. For he declares, that they ought to make no Images of, or unto him, because he made no Representation of himself unto them, they saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto them in Horeb out of the midst of the fire,