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

§. 53 2. That one Day in seven only, and not the seventh Day precisely, is directly and immediately enjoined in the Decalogue, and the seventh only with respect unto an antecedent Mosaical Institution, with the Nature of that Administration of the Covenant which the people of Israel were then taken into, hath been evinced in our investigation of the Causes and Ends of the Sabbath preceding; and been cleared by many. And it seems evident to an impartial consideration. For the Observation of one Day in seven belongs unto every Covenant of God with man. And the Decalogue is the unvariable Rule of mans walking before God, and living unto him; of what nature soever, on other Reasons, the Covenant be between them, whether that of Works, or that of Grace by Jesus Christ. The seventh Day precisely belonging unto the Covenant of Works, cannot therefore be firstly, but only occasionally intended in the Decalogue. Nor doth it, nor can it, invariably belong unto our absolute Obedience unto God, because it is not of the substance of it, but is only an occasional determination of a duty, such as all other Positive Laws do give us. And hence there is in the Command it self a difference put between a Sabbath Day, and the arbitrary limitation of the seventh Day, to be that day. For we are commanded to remember the Sabbath Day, not the seventh Day, and the Reason given (as is ⟨p. 206⟩elsewhere observed) is because God blessed and sanctified the Sabbath Day, (in the close of the Command, where the formal Reason of our Obedience is expressed) not the seventh Day. Nor is indeed the joint Observation of the seventh Day precisely unto all to whom this Command is given, that is, to all who take the Lord to be their God; possible; though it were to the Jews in the Land of Palestine, who were obliged to keep that Day. For the difference of the Climate in the world will not allow it. Nor did the Jews ever know whether the Day they observed, was the seventh from the Creation; only they knew it was so from the day whereon Manna was first given unto them. And the whole Revolution, and Computation of Time by Days, was sufficiently interrupted in the days of Joshua and Hezekiah, from allowing us to think the Observation of the seventh Day to be Moral.

§. 53 2. That one Day in seven only, and not the seventh Day precisely, is directly and immediately injoyned in the Decalogue, and the seventh only with respect unto an antecedent Mosaical Institution, with the Nature of that Administration of the Covenant which the people of Israel were then taken into, hath been evinced in our investigation of the Causes and Ends of the Sabbath preceding; and been cleared by many. And it seems evident to an impartial consideration. For the Observation of one Day in seven belongs unto every Covenant of God with man. And the Decalogue is the unvariable Rule of mans walking before God, and living unto him; of what nature soever, on other Reasons, the Covenant be between them, whether that of Works, or that of Grace by Jesus Christ. The seventh Day precisely belonging unto the Covenant of Works, cannot therefore be firstly, but only occasionally intended in the Decalogue. Nor doth it, nor can it, invariably belong unto our absolute Obedience unto God, because it is not of the substance of it, but is only an occasional determination of a duty, such as all other Positive Laws do give us. And hence there is in the Command it self a difference put between a Sabbath Day, and the arbitrary limitation of the seventh Day, to be that day. For we are commanded to remember the Sabbath Day, not the seventh Day, and the Reason given (as is