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

§. 43 All men, as we have often observed, do allow that there is something Moral in the fourth Commandment, namely, that either some part of it, or the general Nature of it is so. I do not therefore well understand them, and Him of late who hath pleaded that the seventh Day only is required in that Command, and yet that this seventh Day was absolutely Ceremonial and Typical, being accordingly abolished. The consistency of these Assertions doth not yet appear unto me. For if the whole matter of the Command be Ceremonial, the Command it self must needs be so also. For a relief against this contradiction, it is said, that the Morality of this Command consists in this, that we should look after and take up our Spiritual Rest in ⟨p. 182⟩God. But this will not allow, that it should be a distinct Commandment of it self, distinguished from all the Rest of the Decalogue, nor indeed scarcely from any one of them. For the Primitive End of all the Commandments was to direct us and bring us unto Rest with God; of the first Table immediately, and of the second in and by the Performance of the Duties of it, among our selves. And of the first Precept this is the sum; so that it is unduly assigned to be the peculiar Morality of the fourth, instead of the solemn. Expression of that Rest as our End and Happiness. Neither is there any way possible to manifest an especial Intention in, and of any Law, that is not found in this. The Words and Letter of it in their proper, and only sense, require a Day, or an especial season to be appointed for a Sacred Rest. And so doth the Nature of Religious Worship which undoubtedly is directed therein. The Rest of God proposed in the Command as the Reason of it, which was on the seventh day after six of working, requireth the same Intention in the words. So doth also the exact limitation of Time mentioned in it; all in compliance with the Order and Place that it holds in the Decalogue, wherein nothing in general is left unrequired in the Natural and Instituted Worship of God, but only the setting apart, with the Determination and Limitation of some time unto the solemn Observation of it. Few therefore have ever denied but that the Morality of this Command, if it be Moral, doth extend it self unto the separation of some part of our Time to the solemn recognizing of God, and our subjection unto him;

§. 43 All men, as we have often observed, do allow that there is something Moral in the fourth Commandment, namely, that either some part of it, or the general Nature of it is so. I do not therefore well understand them, and Him of late who hath pleaded that the seventh Day only is required in that Command, and yet that this seventh Day was absolutely Ceremonial and Typical, being accordingly abolished. The consistency of these Assertions doth not yet appear unto me. For if the whole matter of the Command be Ceremonial, the Command it self must needs be so also. For a relief against this contradiction, it is said, that the Morality of this Command consists in this, that we should look after and take up our Spiritual Rest in