A53694:89
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 sense of this Expression we shall afterwards explain. In the mean time it is certain that the Word here used doth often signify only to cease, or give over without respect either to weariness or Rest; as Job 32. 1. 1 Sam. 25. 9. So that no cause of offence was given in the Application of it to God himself. However Philo, lib. de Opific. Mund. refers this of Gods Rest, to his contemplation of the ⟨p. 57⟩works of his hands, and that not unmeetly as we shall see. But set aside Prejudices and preconceived Opinions, and any man would think that the Institution of the Sabbath is here as plainly expressed as in the Fourth Commandment. The Words are the continuation of a plain Historical Narration. Having finished the Account of the Creation of the World in the first Chapter, and given a Recapitulation of it in the first Verse of this; Moses declares what immediately ensued thereon; namely the Rest of God, on the seventh Day, and his Blessing and sanctifying that Day whereon he so rested. That Day which he rested he blessed and sanctified; even that individual Day in the first place, and a Day in the Revolution of the same space of Time for succeeding Generations. This is plain in the Words, or nothing can be thought to be plainly expressed. And if there be any Appearance of Difficulty in those words, he blessed and sanctified it, it is wholly taken away in the explication given of them by himself afterwards in the Fourth Commandment, where they are plainly declared to intend its setting apart and Consecration to be a Day of Sacred Rest. But yet Exceptions all put in to this plain open sense of the words. Thus it is lately pleaded by Heddigerus Theol. Patriarch. Exercitat. 3. sect. 58. Deus Die septimo cessaverat facere opus novum, quia sex diebus omnia consummata erant. Ei diei benedixit eo ipso quod cessans ab opere suo, ostendit, quod homo in cujus creation quievit, factus sit propter nominis sui glorificationem; quod cum majus fuerit caeteris quae hactenus creata sunt, vocatur benedictio; eundem diem cui sic benedixit sanctificavit, quia & illo die, & reliquo ⟨p. 58⟩toto tempore constituerat see in homine sanctificare tanquam in corona & gloria sui operis. Sanctificare enim est, eum qui sanctus est, sanctum dicere & testari.