A53694:226
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.
§. 19 But now, to shut up this Discourse; whereas the Covenant which man Originally was taken into, ⟨p. 149⟩was a Covenant of Works; wherein his obtaining Rest with God, depended absolutely on his doing all the Work he had to do in a way of Legal Obedience, he was during the Dispensation of that Covenant, tied up precisely to the Observation of the seventh Day, or that which followed the whole Work of Creation. And the seventh Day, as such, is a Pledge and Token of the Rest promised in the Covenant of Works and no other. And those who would advance that Day again into a necessary Observation, do consequentially introduce the whole Covenant of Works, and are become Debtors unto the whole Law. For the works of God which preceded the seventh Day precisely, were those whereby man was initiated into, and instructed in the Covenant of Works; and the Day it self was a token and pledge of the Righteousness thereof; or a Moral and Natural Sign of it, and of the Rest of God therein, and the Rest of man with God thereby. And it is no service to the Church of God, nor hath any tendency unto the Honour of Christ in the Gospel, to endeavour a Reduction of us unto the Covenant of Nature.
§. 19 But now, to shut up this Discourse; whereas the Covenant which man Originally was taken into, ⟨p. 149⟩was a Covenant of Works; wherein his obtaining Rest with God, depended absolutely on his doing all the Work he had to do in a way of Legal Obedience, he was during the Dispensation of that Covenant, tyed up precisely to the Observation of the seventh Day, or that which followed the whole Work of Creation. And the seventh Day, as such, is a Pledge and Token of the Rest promised in the Covenant of Works and no other. And those who would advance that Day again into a necessary Observation, do consequentially introduce the whole Covenant of Works, and are become Debtors unto the whole Law. For the works of God which preceded the seventh Day precisely, were those whereby man was initiated into, and instructed in the Covenant of Works; and the Day it self was a token and pledge of the Righteousness thereof; or a Moral and Natural Sign of it, and of the Rest of God therein, and the Rest of man with God thereby. And it is no service to the Church of God, nor hath any tendency unto the Honor of Christ in the Gospel, to endeavour a Reduction of us unto the Covenant of Nature.