A53694:307
Exercitations concerning the name, original, nature, use, and continuance of a day of sacred…
Exercitations concerning the name, original, nature, use, and continuance of a day of sacred rest wherein the original of the Sabbath from the foundation of the world, the morality of the Fourth commandment with the change of the Seventh day are enquired into : together with an assertion of the divine institution of the Lord's Day, and practical directions for its due observation / by John Owen.
London: printed by R.W. for Nath. Ponder, 1671
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
The Fourth Exercitation.
§. 1 WE have declared how the Observation of a Septenary Sacred Rest, is required by the Moral Law, or the Law of our Creation. Now this is not absolutely and merely as it is a Law; but as it contained a Covenant between God and man. A Law it might have been, and not have had the nature of a Covenant, which doth not necessarily follow upon either its instructive or preceptive Power. Yet it was originally given in the Counsel of God to that End, and accompanied with Promises and Threatenings, whence it had the Nature of a Covenant. By virtue of this Law as a Covenant, was the Observation of a Sabbath prescribed and required, as a Token and Pledge of Gods Rest in that Covenant, in the performance of the Works whereon it was constituted; and of the Interest of man in that Rest, as also a Means of Entrance into it. On this ground it should have been observed in the State of Innocency, wherein the Law of it was given and declared. For it was no less necessary unto that state and condition, than unto any other wherein God requireth Covenant Obedience of men; nor, considering the Nature and Ends of an holy Rest or Sabbath, can any Reason be given, why it should be thought accommodated only to the Administration of the ⟨p. 222⟩Covenant under the Old Testament after the giving of the Law, whereunto by some it is appropriated.
§. 1 WE have declared how the Observation of a Septenary Sacred Rest, is required by the Moral Law, or the Law of our Creation. Now this is not absolutely and meerly as it is a Law; but as it contained a Covenant between God and man. A Law it might have been, and not have had the nature of a Covenant, which doth not necessarily follow upon either its instructive or preceptive Power. Yet it was originally given in the Counsel of God to that End, and accompanied with Promises and Threatnings, whence it had the Nature of a Covenant. By vertue of this Law as a Covenant, was the Observation of a Sabbath prescribed and required, as a Token and Pledge of Gods Rest in that Covenant, in the performance of the Works whereon it was constituted; and of the Interest of man in that Rest, as also a Means of Entrance into it. On this ground it should have been observed in the State of Innocency, wherein the Law of it was given and declared. For it was no less necessary unto that state and condition, than unto any other wherein God requireth Covenant Obedience of men; nor, considering the Nature and Ends of an holy Rest or Sabbath, can any Reason be given, why it should be thought accommodated only to the Administration of the