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

§. 26 Upon this Foundation therefore we may proceed. And I say in the next place, that the stated Time directed unto for the Ends of a Sacred Rest unto God, by the Light and Law of Nature, that is Gods Command impressed on the mind of man in and by his own Creation, and that of the rest of the Works of God intended for his Direction in Obedience, is, that it be one day in seven. For the confirmation hereof, what we have discoursed concerning the Law of Creation, and the Covenant ratified with man therein, is to be remembered. On the supposition thereof, the Advancement or Constitution of any other Portion of Time in the stead, and to the Exclusion thereof, as a Determination and Limitation of the Time required in general in the first Instance of that Law, is and would appear a contradiction unto it. God having finished his Works in six Days, and rested on the seventh, giving man thereby and therein, the Rule, and Law of his Obedience and Rewards for him to assign any other measure or portion of Time for his Rest unto God in his Solemn Worship, is to decline the Authority of God, for the sake of his own inventions; and to assign no portion at all unto that End, is openly to transgress a principal Dictate of the Law of Nature, as hath been proved. Neither this Direction nor Transgression I confess, will evidently manifest themselves in the mere Light of Nature, as now depraved and corrupted. No more will sundry Instances ⟨p. 158⟩of its Authority, unless its voice be diligently attended unto, and its Light cultivated and improved in the minds of men, by the Advantage of Consequential Revelations, given unto us for that purpose. For that by the Assistance of Scripture Light, and Rational Considerations thence arising, we may discover many things to be dictates of, and to be directed unto by the Law of Nature, which those who are left unto the mere Guidance and Conduct of it could not discover so to be, may be easily proved from the open Transgression of it in sundry Instances which they lived and approved themselves in, who seemed most to have lived according unto it, and professed themselves to be wise in following the Light and Conduct of Reason in all things, as was before at large discoursed.

§. 26 Upon this Foundation therefore we may proceed. And I say in the next place, that the stated Time directed unto for the Ends of a Sacred Rest unto God, by the Light and Law of Nature, that is Gods Command impressed on the mind of man in and by his own Creation, and that of the rest of the Works of God intended for his Direction in Obedience, is, that it be one day in seven. For the confirmation hereof, what we have discoursed concerning the Law of Creation, and the Covenant ratified with man therein, is to be remembred. On the supposition thereof, the Advancement or Constitution of any other Portion of Time in the stead, and to the Exclusion thereof, as a Determination and Limitation of the Time required in general in the first Instance of that Law, is and would appear a contradiction unto it. God haveing finished his Works in six Dayes, and rested on the seventh, giving man thereby and therein, the Rule, and Law of his Obedience and Rewards for him to assign any other measure or portion of Time for his Rest unto God in his Solemn Worship, is to decline the Authority of God, for the sake of his own inventions; and to assign no portion at all unto that End, is openly to transgress a principal Dictate of the Law of Nature, as hath been proved. Neither this Direction nor Transgression I confess, will evidently manifest themselves in the meer Light of Nature, as now depraved and corrupted. No more will sundry Instances