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

3. Suppose that the Sabbath had received a limitation to the seventh Day precisely, in the Ordinance given unto that people in the first raining of Manna; then doth the Observation of that Day precisely by virtue of this Command necessarily take place. And yet the Command which is but the revival of what was required from the foundation of the world cannot be said to intend that Day precisely in the first place. For the Reason of, and in the Original Command for a Sabbatical Rest, was Gods making the World in six days, and resting on the seventh; which requires no more, but that in the continual Revolution of seven ⟨p. 202⟩days, six being allowed unto Work, one should be observed a Sacred Rest to God. These words therefore Remember the Sabbath Day, referring unto the Primitive Command and Reason of it, as is afterwards declared in the Body of the Law, requires no more but a Weekly Day of Rest, whereunto the seventh Day is reduced, as added by an especial Ordinance. And the Reason of this Commandment from the Works of God, and the Order of them, is repeated in the Decalogue, because the Instruction given us by them, being a part of the Law of our Creation, more subject unto a neglect, disregard, and forgetfulness, than those other Parts of it, which were wholly innate to the Principles of our own Nature, it was necessary that the Remembrance of it should be so expressly revived, when in the other Precepts there is only a tacit excitation of our own inbred Light and Principles.

3. Suppose that the Sabbath had received a limitation to the seventh Day precisely, in the Ordinance given unto that people in the first raining of Manna; then doth the Observation of that Day precisely by vertue of this Command necessarily take place. And yet the Command which is but the revival of what was required from the foundation of the world cannot be said to intend that Day precisely in the first place. For the Reason of, and in the Original Command for a Sabbatical Rest, was Gods making the World in six dayes, and resting on the seventh; which requires no more, but that in the continual Revolution of seven ⟨p. 202⟩dayes, six being allowed unto Work, one should be observed a Sacred Rest to God. These words therefore Remember the Sabbath Day, referring unto the Primitive Command and Reason of it, as is afterwards declared in the Body of the Law, requires no more but a Weekly Day of Rest, whereunto the seventh Day is reduced, as added by an especial Ordinance. And the Reason of this Commandment from the Works of God, and the Order of them, is repeated in the Decalogue, because the Instruction given us by them, being a part of the Law of our Creation, more subject unto a neglect, disregard, and forgetfulness, than those other Parts of it, which were wholly innate to the Principles of our own Nature, it was necessary that the Remembrance of it should be so expresly revived, when in the other Precepts there is only a tacit excitation of our own inbred Light and Principles.