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

(2.) Time abstractedly, or one Day in seven absolutely, is not the adequate Object of the Precept, or the fourth Commandment. But it is an ⟨p. 199⟩Holy Rest to be observed unto God in his Worship on such a Day. And this, not an Holy Rest unto God in general, as the Tendency and End of all our Obedience and living unto him, but as an especial Remembrance and Representation of the Rest of God himself, with his Complacency and Satisfaction in his Works, as establishing a Covenant between himself and us. This is the Principal subject of the Command; or a stated Day of an Holy Rest unto God in such a Revolution of Days or Time. This we have proved to be Moral from the Foundation and Reason of it, laid and given in the Law of Nature, revived and represented in the fourth Command of the Decalogue. Now though Place be an inseparable circumstance of all Actions, and so capable of being made a circumstance of Divine Worship by Divine Positive Command, as it was of old in the Instance of the Temple; yet no especial or particular Place, had the least Guidance or Direction unto it in the Law of Nature, by any Works or Acts of God, whose Instructive Virtue belonged thereunto; and therefore all Places were alike free by Nature; and every Place wherein the Worship of God was celebrated, was a natural Circumstance of the Actions performed, and not a Religious Circumstance of Worship, until a particular Place was assigned and determined by Positive Command for that purpose. It is otherwise with Time, as hath been showed at large. And therefore although any place, notwithstanding any thing in the Law of Nature, might have been separated by Positive Institution unto the Solemn Worship of God, it doth not thence follow, as is pretended, that any Time, ⟨p. 200⟩a Day in a Monthly or annual Revolution, might have been separated unto the like purpose, seeing God had given us Indication of another Limitation of it in the Law of Creation.

(2.) Time abstractedly, or one Day in seven absolutely, is not the adequate Object of the Precept, or the fourth Commandment. But it is an ⟨p. 199⟩Holy Rest to be observed unto God in his Worship on such a Day. And this, not an Holy Rest unto God in general, as the Tendency and End of all our Obedience and living unto him, but as an especial Remembrance and Representation of the Rest of God himself, with his Complacency and Satisfaction in his Works, as establishing a Covenant between himself and us. This is the Principal subject of the Command; or a stated Day of an Holy Rest unto God in such a Revolution of Dayes or Time. This we have proved to be Moral from the Foundation and Reason of it, laid and given in the Law of Nature, revived and represented in the fourth Command of the Decalogue. Now though Place be an inseparable circumstance of all Actions, and so capable of being made a circumstance of Divine Worship by Divine Positive Command, as it was of old in the Instance of the Temple; yet no especial or particular Place, had the least Guidance or Direction unto it in the Law of Nature, by any Works or Acts of God, whose Instructive Vertue belonged thereunto; and therefore all Places were alike free by Nature; and every Place wherein the Worship of God was celebrated, was a natural Circumstance of the Actions performed, and not a Religious Circumstance of Worship, until a particular Place was assigned and determined by Positive Command for that purpose. It is otherwise with Time, as hath been shewed at large. And therefore although any place, notwithstanding any thing in the Law of Nature, might have been separated by Positive Institution unto the Solemn Worship of God, it doth not thence follow, as is pretended, that any Time,